THE 
WRITING  OF  ENGLISH 


BY 
JOHN  MATTHEWS  MANLY 

HEAD  OF  THE  DEPARTMENT  OF  ENGLISH  AT  THE 
UNIVERSITY  OF  CHICAGO 

AND 
EDITH  RICKERT 

SOMETIME     INSTRUCTOR  IN  ENGLISH  AT   VASSAR 
COLLEGE  AND  THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  CHICAGO 


NEW  YORK 

HENRY  HOLT  AND  COMPANY 


COPYRIGHT,  1919. 

BY 
HENRY  HOLT  AND  COMPANY 


PREFACE 

OUR  primary  purpose  in  this  book  is  to  awaken  in  the 
student  the  desire  for  self-expression  through  the  written 
and  spoken  word.  Without  this  desire  all  teaching  is  futile; 
and  with  it  learning  is  inevitable.  With  the  student  in  an 
attitude  of  confidence  in  the  worth  of  his  own  thinking  and 
of  eagerness  to  learn  the  methods  by  which  it  can  be  con- 
veyed to  others  in  words,  the  problem  of  teaching  the  use 
of  English  reduces  to  the  balancing  of  constructive  practice 
over  against  the  corrective  drill  necessary  to  eradicate  the 
bad  habits  due  to  foreign  birth,  defective  training,  or  in- 
difference. 

The  methods  here  presented  have  grown  out  of  experiment 
at  the  University  of  Chicago  with  sections  of  freshmen  who, 
being  below  the  standard  for  entrance,  were  required  to  take 
additional  training  before  they  could  be  admitted  to  the 
regular  freshman  course  in  English.  By  the  kind  of  practice 
and  study  developed  in  this  book  the  following  results  were 
obtained  with  a  hundred  students : 

1.  Approximately  one-third  were  brought  up  to  the  fresh- 
man standard. 

2.  Approximately   one- third  were   permitted   to   take  a 
supplementary  half-course  and  given  credit  for  freshman 
English. 

3.  Approximately  one-third  were  given  freshman  credit 
without  delay  or  further  training. 

In  brief,  two-thirds  of  the  class  accomplished  what  had 
before  been  done  by  a  very  small  percentage. 

This  improvement  in  results  was  due  not  merely  to  the 
student's  changed  attitude  toward  writing  but  also  to  his 


iv  PREFACE 

acquired  sense  of  responsibility  in  the  corrective  drill  work. 
He  was  shown  how  errors  in  form  can  be  eliminated;  and  if, 
after  fair  trial,  he  did  not  begin  to  take  an  active  part  in  his 
own  salvation  in  this  respect,  his  work  was  ruthlessly  rejected 
on  this  basis  alone.  With  such  an  understanding,  most  of 
the  papers  soon  showed  a  steady  and  rapid  gain  in  the  use 
of  English;  and  with  the  freeing  of  energy  from  the  con- 
tinual consideration  of  mechanics,  a  decided  improvement 
in  the  thought  expressed  and  in  the  technique  of  expression. 
To  see  the  stirring  of  interesting  and  original  lines  of  thought 
in  students  supposedly  dull  or  indifferent  was  no  less  gratify- 
ing than  to  read  almost  faultless  English  written  by  Russians, 
Poles,  Lithuanians,  Chinese,  Japanese,  and  young  people 
of  many  other  nationalities,  whose  work  in  the  beginning 
was  almost  unintelligible. 

Of  the  many  unorthodox  features  in  the  treatment  of  va- 
rious subjects  it  is  perhaps  unnecessary  to  speak:  they  should 
be  their  own  warrant.  One  point  only  in  the  general  struc- 
ture of  the  book  does  not  at  once  appear,  and  needs  a  word 
of  explanation.  Remembering  that  the  term  "freshman" 
does  not  connote  a  fixed  standard  of  attainment,  we  have 
tried  to  plan  the  work  outlined  so  that  it  can  be  adapted  to 
the  needs  of  students  in  various  stages  of  proficiency.  By 
the  average  student  the  Appendix  should  be  used  only  for 
reference  during  the  writing  and  correcting  of  papers;  but 
by  the  poor  student  it  should  be  made  the  subject  of  con- 
tinual study  and  drill  outside  the  classroom,  with  emphasis 
placed  according  to  individual  needs.  It  can  be  used  to 
advantage  by  several  students  working  together.  In  the 
constructive  part  of  the  book  more  exercises  have  been  pro- 
vided than  any  class  could  do;  but  these  are  purposely  of 
many  types  to  meet  the  experience  and  powers  of  different 
students.  Again,  by  classes  that  need  to  spend  much  time 
on  the  preliminary  and  outside  drill  work  whole  chapters  in 
Part  III  may  be  omitted  or  relegated  to  the  sophomore  year 


PREFACE  V 

without  in  any  way  interfering  with  the  integrity  of  the 
course.  It  is  hoped  that  this  flexibility  of  plan  may  be 
accounted  among  the  merits  of  the  book. 

To  the  teacher  overburdened  with  dead  weight  of  daily 
themes  we  hope  that  our  methods  may  be  of  special  use. 
We  try  continually  to  suggest  ways  in  which  by  stimulating 
the  student  to  take  a  more  active  part  in  the  cooperative 
work  of  education  the  teacher's  energies  may  be  conserved 
for  that  constructive  criticism  in  which  the  finest  elements 
of  personality  are  indispensable. 

To  Dr.  Charles  Manly  and  Mrs.  Hellen  Manly  Patrick  are 
due  thanks  for  invaluable  assistance  in  the  reading  of  manu- 
script and  proof,  and  in  the  preparation  of  the  Index. 

J.  M.  M. 
E.  R. 

WASHINGTON,  January  27,  1919. 


CONTENTS 
PARTI 

INTRODUCTORY  WORK 

Chapter  Page 

I.  WRITING  AND  READING 3 

II.  READING  ALOUD , 11 

III.  USE  OF  THE  LIBRARY > 20 

IV.  USE  OF  THE  DICTIONARY 30 

V.  GOOD  FORM 37 

PART  II 

TECHNIQUE 

VI.  THE  SENTENCE 

1.  Predication 53 

2.  Organization 57 

3.  Modification 64 

4.  Punctuation 67 

5.  Compound  Elements 72 

6.  The  Compound  Sentence 76 

7.  The  Complex  Sentence 82 

8.  Phrases 90 

9.  Compactness 96 

10.  Clearness 100 

11.  Euphony  and  Rhythm 107 

12.  Sentence  Building 112 

VII.  THE  PARAGRAPH 

1.  External  Organization 118 

2.  Length 121 

3.  Internal  Organization 123 

4.  Structural  Devices 132 

VIII.  PURPOSE  AND  PROCESS  IN  WRITING 138 

IX.  NARRATION 

1.  Limitation  of  Material 142 

2.  Scale  of  Treatment.  .                                                         . .  147 


viii  CONTENTS 

Chapter  Page 

3.  Narrative  Devices 151 

4.  Plot 153 

X.  DESCRIPTION 

1.  Sense  Appeal 159 

2.  Choice  of  Details 166 

3.  Point  of  View 170 

4.  General  Impression 174 

5.  Plan 182 

6.  Combined  with  Narration 185 

XI.  EXPOSITION 

1.  Methods 189 

2.  Definition 194 

3.  Division 198 

4.  Exemplification 202 

5.  Paraphrase  and  Amplification 204 

6.  Generalized  Description  and  Narration 206 

7.  Cause  and  Effect 208 

8.  Character  Drawing 213 

XII.  ARGUMENT 

1.  Evidence 222 

2.  Authority 226 

3.  Inductive  Reasoning 233 

4.  Deductive  Reasoning 237 

5.  Inductive  and  Deductive  Reasoning 241 

6.  Analogy 243 

7.  Persuasion 246 

8.  Preparing  a  Formal  Argument 249 

XIII.  THE  VALUES  OF  WORDS 255 

XIV.  IMAGINATION 268 

PART  III 

PRACTICE 

XV.  THE  TYPES  OF  WRITING 277 

XVI.  NEWSPAPER  WORK 

1.  News 282 

2.  General  Principles : 285 

3.  News  Stories 288 

4.  Feature  Stories 289 

5.  "Human  Interest"  Stories.  .  .  .  .   292 


CONTENTS  ix 

Chapter  Page 

6.  "Rewrite"  and  "Follow-up"  Stories 296 

7.  The  Sunday  Edition 298 

8.  Editorials 299 

XVII.  THE  SHORT  STORY 

1.  Characteristics  and  Sources 303 

2.  Development 305 

3.  Point  of  View 314 

4.  Characters 316 

5.  Setting 320 

6.  Dialogue 322 

7.  Title 325 

8.  General  Exercises  in  the  Short  Story 326 

XVIII.  THE  PLAY 328 

XIX.  THE  SHORT  PAPER 

1.  Plan 835 

2.  The  Informative  Article 340 

3.  The  Informal  Essay 350 

4.  The  Nature  Study 351 

5.  Studies  in  Human  Nature 354 

6.  The  Biographical  Study,  1 357 

7.  The  Biographical  Study,  II 359 

8.  The  Biographical  Study,  III 362 

9.  The  Propaganda  Paper  or  Speech 365 

XX.  CRITICISM 369 

XXI.  RESEARCH  WORK 381 

XXII.  LETTER-WRITING 

1.  Personal  Letters 386 

2.  Routine  Business  Letters 390 

3.  Official  and  Form  Letters 393 

4.  Constructive  Business  Letters 394 

XXIII.  VERSE 

1.  Meter 398 

-     2.  The  Ballad 403 

3.  Common  Stanza  Forms 407 

4.  The  Sonnet. . .  .  .  408 


APPENDIX 

I.  GOOD  FORM  IN  WRITING 413 

Rules  for  Manuscript 413 

Rules  for  Personal  Letters ...  . .  415 


x  CONTENTS 

Appendix  Page 

Formal  Letters 417 

Rules  for  Business  Letters 418 

Penmanship 419 

II.  NOTE-TAKING 420 

Library  Notes 420 

Class  Notes 422 

III.  CAPITALS  AND  ITALICS 423 

Capitals 424 

Italics 428 

IV.  SPELLING 431 

General  Rules 431 

Exercises  in  Spelling 434 

The  Hyphen ' 439 

Spelling-out  and  Abbreviation 442 

V.  ON  SPEAKING  ENGLISH 442 

VI.  PUNCTUATION 445 

Period 446 

Question  Mark 446 

Exclamation  Mark 447 

Colon 447 

Semicolon 448 

Comma 448 

Common  Abuses  of  the  Comma 451 

Dash 452 

Ellipses 453 

Quotation  Marks 453 

Marks  of  Parenthesis 454 

Brackets 455 

VII.  GRAMMAR  REVIEW 455 

Questions 455 

Troublesome  Verbs 457 

Summary  of  the  Rules  for  Shall  and  Will 458 

VIII.  SENTENCE  FAULTS 459 

SENTENCES  FOR  CORRECTION 475 

IDIOMS 482 

EXERCISES  IN  DISCRIMINATION 487 

COLLOQUIALISMS 489 

OVERWORKED  PHRASES ,  494 


ILLUSTRATIONS 

GEORGE  GISZE  [Holbein] 218 

SIR  THOMAS  MORE  [Holbein] 

CICELY  HERON  [Holbein] 

WORDSWORTH'S  DAFFODILS - 378 


PARTI 

INTRODUCTORY  WORK 


CHAPTER  I 
WRITING  AND  READING 

Do  you  like  to  write  ?  Probably  not.  What  have  you  tried 
to  write?  Probably  "themes." 

The  "theme"  is  a  literary  form  invented  by  teachers  of 
rhetoric  for  the  education  of  students  in  the  art  of  writing. 
It  does  not  exist  outside  the  world  of  school  and  college.  No 
editor  ever  accepted  a  "theme."  No  "theme"  was  ever  de- 
livered from  a  rostrum,  or  spoken  at  a  dinner,  or  bound  be- 
tween the  covers  of  a  book  in  the  hope  that  it  might  live  for 
centuries.  In  a  word,  a  "theme"  is  first  and  last  a  product 
of  "composition" — a  laborious  putting  together  of  ideas, 
without  audience  and  without  purpose,  hated  alike  by  student 
and  by  instructor.  Its  sole  use  is  to  exemplify  the  principles 
of  rhetoric.  But  rhetoric  belongs  to  the  past  as  much  as  the 
toga  and  the  snuffbox;  it  is  an  extinct  art,  the  art  of  culti- 
vating style  according  to  the  mannerisms  of  a  vanished  age. 

Forget  that  you  ever  wrote  a  "theme,"  and  ask  yourself 
now :  "Should  I  like  to  write? "  Of  course  you  would — if  you 
could.  And  you  can.  You  have  had,  and  you  will  have, 
some  experiences  that  will  not  be  repeated  exactly  in  any 
other  life — that  no  one  else  can  express  exactly  as  you  would 
express  them.  And  the  art  of  expressing  what  you  have  ex- 
perienced, what  you  think,  what  you  feel,  and  what  you 
believe,  can  be  learned. 

If  you  stop  to  consider  the  matter,  you  will  realize  that 
self-expression  is  one  of  the  laws  of  life;  you  do  express 
yourself  day  after  day,  whether  you  will  or  not.  Hence, 
the  more  quickly  you  learn  that  successful  self-expression  is 
the  source  of  one  of  the  greatest  pleasures  in  life,  the  more 


4  THE  WRITING  OF  ENGLISH 

readily  will  you  be  able  to  turn  your  energy  in  the  right  direc- 
tion, and  the  more  fun  will  you  get  out  of  the  process.  The 
kind  of  delight  that  comes  through  self-expression  of  the 
body,  through  the  play  of  the  muscles  in  running  or  hurdling, 
through  the  play  of  muscles  and  mind  together  in  football 
or  baseball  or  tennis  or  golf,  comes  also  through  the  exercise 
of  the  mind  alone  in  talk  or  in  writing. 

Remember  always  throughout  this  course,  that  you  have 
something  to  say — something  peculiar  to  yourself  that  should 
be  contributed  to  the  sum  of  the  world's  experience,  some- 
thing that  cannot  be  contributed  by  anyone  but  yourself. 
It  may  be  much  or  it  may  be  little:  with  that  you  are  not  con- 
cerned at  present;  your  business  now  is  to  find  out  how  to 
say  it;  how  to  clear  away  the  obstacles  that  clog  self-expres- 
sion; how  to  give  your  mind  free  swing;  and  how  to  get  all 
the  fun  there  is  in  the  process. 

The  initial  problems  in  learning  to  write  are:  How  can  you 
get  at  this  store  of  material  hidden  within  you?  and  how  can 
you  know  when  you  have  found  it?  Your  experience,  how- 
ever interesting,  is  as  yet  very  limited.  How  can  you  tell 
which  phases  of  it  deserve  expression,  and  which  are  mere 
commonplace?  The  quickest  way  to  answer  this  question 
is  by  reading.  Reading  will  tell  you  which  phases  of  expe- 
rience have  been  commonly  treated  and  which  have  been 
neglected.  Moreover,  as  you  read  you  will  be  surprised  to 
find  that  very  often  the  features  of  your  life  which  seem  to 
you  peculiarly  interesting  are  exactly  those  that  are  com- 
monly— and  even  cheaply — written  about,  while  those  which 
you  have  passed  over  as  not  worth  attention  may  be  aspects 
of  life  that  other  people  too  have  passed  over;  they  may  there- 
fore be  fresh  and  well  worth  writing  about.  For  instance, 
within  the  last  twenty-five  years  we  have  had  two  writers, 
Joseph  Conrad  and  John  Masefield,  writing  of  the  sea  as  it 
has  never  been  written  of  before.  Both  have  been  sailors;  and 
both  have  utilized  their  experience  as  viewed  through  the 


WRITING  AND  READING  5 

medium  of  their  temperaments  in  a  way  undreamed  of  be- 
fore. Again,  within  the  last  ten  years  we  have  had  Algernon 
Blackwood,  using  his  imagination  to  apply  psychology  to  the 
study  of  the  supernatural,  and  so  developing  a  field  peculiar 
to  himself.  Still  again,  H.  G.  Wells,  who  began  his  career 
as  a  clerk  and  continued  as  a  teacher  of  science,  has  found 
in  both  these  phases  of  his  experience  a  mine  of  literary 
wealth;  and  Arnold  Bennett,  born  and  educated  in  the  drear- 
iest, most  unpicturesque,  apparently  least  inspiring,  part  of 
England,  has  seen  in  the  very  prosiness  of  the  Five  Towns 
untouched  material,  and  has  given  this  an  enduring  place  in 
literature.  In  your  imagination  there  may  lie  the  basis  of 
fantasies  as  yet  unexpressed;  or  in  your  experience,  aspects 
of  life  that  have  not  as  yet  been  adequately  treated.  As  you 
read  you  will  find  that  until  recently  the  one  phase  of  life 
most  exploited  in  literature  was  the  romantic  love  of  youth; 
this  was  the  basis  of  nearly  all  novels  and  of  most  short 
stories;  its  presence  was  demanded  for  either  primary  or 
secondary  interest  in  the  drama;  and  it  was  the  chief  source 
of  inspiration  for  the  lyric.  But  within  the  last  thirty  years 
all  sorts  of  other  subjects  have  been  opened  up.  To-day  the 
writer's  difficulty  is,  not  that  he  is  restricted  by  literary  con- 
vention in  his  choice  of  material,  but  that  he  is  so  absolutely 
unrestricted  that  he  may  be  in  doubt  where  to  make  his 
choice.  He  is,  to  be  sure,  conditioned  in  two  ways :  To  do  the 
best  work,  he  must  keep  within  the  bounds  of  his  own  tem- 
perament and  experience;  and  he  should  as  far  as  possible 
avoid  phases  of  life  already  written  about,  unless  he  can 
present  them  under  some  new  aspect. 

With  these  conditions  in  mind,  you  are  ready  to  ask  your- 
self: What  have  I  to  write  about?  Let  us  put  the  question 
more  concretely:  Have  you  lived,  for  instance,  in  a  little 
mining  town  in  the  West?  Such  a  little  town,  with  its  saloons 
and  automatics  and  flannel-shirted  hero,  stares  at  us  every 
month  from  the  pages  of  popular  magazines.  But  perhaps 


6  THE  WRITING  OF  ENGLISH 

your  little  mining  town  is  dry,  perhaps  there  has  not  been  a 
shooting  fray  hi  it  for  ten  years,  and  all  the  young  men  go 
to  Bible  class  on  Sunday.  Well,  here  is  something  new:  let 
us  have  it.  Is  New  York  your  home?  The  magazines  tell  you 
that  New  York  is  parceled  out  among  a  score  of  writers: 
the  Italian  quarter,  the  Jewish  quarter,  the  Syrian  quarter, 
the  boarding-houses,  Wall  Street.  What  is  there  left?  The 
suburbs?  Surely  not;  and  yet  have  you  ever  seen  a  story  of 
just  your  kind  of  street  and  just  the  kind  of  people  that 
you  know?  If  not,  here  is  your  opportunity. 

You  have  read  about  sailors,  fishermen,  farmers,  de- 
tectives, Italian  fruit-peddlers,  Jewish  clothes-merchants, 
commercial  travelers,  financiers,  salesmen  and  saleswomen, 
doctors,  clergymen,  heiresses  and  men  about  town,  but 
have  you  often  read  a  thrilling  romance  of  a  filing  clerk? 
How  about  the  heroism  of  a  telephone  collector?  the  humors 
of  a  street-car  conductor?  The  seeing  eye  will  find  material 
in  the  street  car,  in  the  department  store,  in  the  dentist's 
waiting  room,  in  college  halls,  on  a  lonely  country  road — 
anywhere  and  everywhere.  And  the  seeing  eye  is  cultivated 
by  a  perpetual  process  of  comparing  life  as  it  is  with  life  as 
it  is  portrayed  in  literature  and  in  art.  In  other  words,  to 
get  material  to  write  about,  you  must  cultivate  alertness  to 
the  nature  and  value  of  your  own  life-experience,  and  to  the 
nature  and  value  of  all  forms  of  life  with  which  you  come  into 
contact;  but  this  you  can  never  do  with  any  degree  of  success 
unless  you  at  the  same  time  learn  how  to  read. 

You  may  say  that  you  know  how  to  read.  It  is  almost 
certain  that  you  do  not.  If  by  reading  you  mean  that  you 
can  run  your  eye  over  a  page,  and,  barring  a  word  here  and 
there,  get  the  general  drift  of  the  sense,  you  may  perhaps 
qualify  as  able  to  read.  If  you  are  set  the  task  of  interpreting 
fully  every  phrase  in  an  article  by  a  thoughtful  writer,  the 
chances  are  that  you  will  fail.  When  only  a  small  part  of 
a  writer's  meaning  has  passed  from  his  mind  to  yours,  you 


WRITING  AND  READING  7 

can  hardly  be  said  to  have  read  what  he  has  written.  On 
the  other  hand,  no  one  can  get  out  of  written  words  all  that 
was  put  into  them.  What  was  written  out  of  one  man's  expe- 
rience must  be  interpreted  by  another's  experience;  and  as 
no  two  people  ever  have  exactly  the  same  experience — no  two 
people  are  exactly  alike — it  follows  that  no  interpreta- 
tion is  ever  entirely  what  the  writer  had  in  mind.  The  ratio 
between  what  goes  into  a  book  and  what  comes  out  of  it 
varies  in  two  ways.  Granted  the  same  reader,  he  will  take 
only  to  the  limit  of  his  capacity  from  any  book  set  before 
him:  he  may  get  almost  all  from  a  book  that  contains  but 
little,  a  good  share  of  a  book  that  contains  much,  but  very 
little  of  a  book  that  is  far  beyond  the  range  of  his  experience. 
Granted  the  same  book,  one  reader  will  barely  skim  its  sur- 
face, another  will  gain  a  fair  idea  of  the  gist  of  it,  a  third  will 
almost  relive  it  with  the  author. 

The  main  point  is  that  this  varying  ratio  depends  upon  the 
amount  of  life-experience  that  goes  into  the  writing  of  a  book 
and  the  amount  of  life-experience  that  goes  into  the  reading 
of  it.  For  as  writing  is  the  expression  of  life,  so  reading  is 
vicarious  living — living  by  proxy,  reliving  in  imagination 
what  the  author  has  lived  before  he  was  able  to  write  ft. 
Hence,  we  grow  up  to  books,  grow  into  them,  and  grow  out 
of  them.  Our  growing  experience  of  life  may  be  measured  by 
the  books  that  we  read;  and  conversely,  as  we  cannot  have 
all  experience  in  our  own  lives,  books  are  necessarily  one  of 
the  most  fruitful  sources  of  growth  in  experience. 

This  is  true,  however,  only  of  what  may  be  called  vitalized 
reading — reading,  not  with  the  eyes  alone,  nor  with  the  mind 
alone,  but  with  the  stored  experiences  of  life,  with  the  emo- 
tions that  it  has  brought,  with  the  attitudes  toward  men  and 
things  and  ideas  that  it  has  given — in  a  word,  with  imagina- 
tion. To  read  with  imagination,  you  must  be,  in  the  first 
place,  active;  in  the  second  place,  sensitive,  and,  because  you 
are  sensitive,  receptive.  Instead,  however,  of  being  merely 


8  THE  WRITING  OF  ENGLISH 

passively  receptive  of  the  stream  of  ideas  and  images  and 
sensations  flowing  from  the  work  you  are  reading,  you  must 
be  alert  to  take  all  that  it  has  to  give,  and  to  re-create  this 
in  terms  of  your  own  experience.  Thus  by  making  it  a  part 
of  your  imaginative  experience,  you  widen  your  actual  expe- 
rience, you  enrich  your  life,  and  you  increase  the  flexibility 
and  vital  power  of  your  mind. 

In  order,  then,  to  tap  the  sources  of  your  imagination,  you 
must  learn  to  experience  in  two  ways:  first,  through  life  it- 
self, not  so  much  by  seeking  experiences  different  from  those 
that  naturally  come  your  way,  as  by  becoming  aware  of 
the  value  of  those  that  belong  naturally  to  your  life;  and 
second,  through  learning  to  absorb  and  transmute  the  life 
that  is  in  books,  beginning  with  those  that  stand  nearest 
to  your  stage  of  development.  In  the  process  of  reading 
you  will  turn  more  and  more  to  those  writers  who  have  a 
larger  mastery  of  life,  and  who,  by  their  skill  in  expressing  the 
wisdom  and  beauty  that  they  have  made  their  own,  can  ad- 
mit you,  when  you  are  ready,  to  some  share  in  that  mastery. 

ASSIGNMENT 

1.  Read  slowly  the  following  extract  from  G.  H.  Palmer's  Self- 
cultivation  in  English: 

"But  the  very  fact  that  literary  endowment  is  immediately 
recognized  and  eagerly  envied  has  induced  a  strange  illusion  in 
regard  to  it.  It  is  supposed  to  be  something  mysterious,  innate 
in  him  who  possesses  it,  and  quite  out  of  the  reach  of  him  who  has 
it  not.  The  very  contrary  is  the  fact.  No  human  employment 
is  more  free  and  calculable  than  the  winning  of  language.  Un- 
doubtedly there  are  natural  aptitudes  for  it,  as  there  are  for  farm- 
ing, seamanship,  or  being  a  good  husband.  But  nowhere  is  straight 
work  more  effective.  Persistence,  care,  discriminating  observation, 
ingenuity,  refusal  to  lose  heart, — traits  which  in  every  other  occu- 
pation tend  toward  excellence, — tend  toward  it  here  with  special 
security." 

Does  Mr.  Palmer  mean  that  anyone  can  learn  to  write  well? 
How? 

Read  the  quotation  again,  and  see  whether  you  got  the  full  mean- 


WRITING  AND  READING  9 

ing.  What  escaped  you?  Now  make  a  complete  statement  of  Mr. 
Palmer's  idea,  in  one  sentence  if  possible. 

Is  the  expression  of  this  idea  commonplace  or  not?  Which  words, 
phrases,  or  sentences,  attracted  your  attention  as  being  in  some 
way  unusual?  Suggest  if  you  can  a  commonplace  substitute  for 
each,  and  show  the  difference  in  meaning  or  in  effect  of  the  expres- 
sion used. 

Interpret  such  of  the  following  expressions  as  you  have  not  al- 
ready discussed:  induced;  innate;  who  has  it  not;  very  contrary;  free 
and  calculable;  winning  of  language;  straight  work;  refusal  to  lose 
heart;  tend  toivard  excellence;  special  security. 

This  passage  is  charged  with  meanings,  chiefly  because  it  says 
much  in  small  space;  therefore  in  a  casual  and  careless  reading 
many  of  them  are  lost.  In  order  to  "read"  the  passage  so  that  you 
absorb  its  meaning  in  large  part,  you  must  get  the  flavor  of  meaning 
of  each  word  as  it  comes,  and  of  each  group  of  words.  To  do  this, 
you  must  take  time  enough  for  the  play  of  the  mind;  you  must  be 
at  once  sensitive  to  each  new  impression  in  turn,  and  at  the  same 
time  alert  to  dominate  the  whole  with  your  own  mental  activity. 

2.  Read  the  following  extract  from  C.  W.  Eliot's  The  Cultivated 
Man: 

"When  we  ask  ourselves  why  a  knowledge  of  literature  seems 
indispensable  to  the  ordinary  idea  of  cultivation,  we  find  no  answer 
except  this,  that  in  literature  are  portrayed  all  human  passions, 
desires,  and  aspirations,  and  that  acquaintance  with  these  human 
feelings,  and  with  the  means  of  portraying  them,  seems  to  us  es- 
sential to  culture.  These  human  qualities  and  powers  are  also  the 
commonest  ground  of  interesting  human  discourse,  and  therefore 
literary  knowledge  exalts  the  quality  and  enhances  the  enjoyment 
of  human  intercourse.  It  is  in  conversation  that  cultivation  tells 
as  much  as  anywhere,  and  this  rapid  exchange  of  thoughts  is  by 
far  the  commonest  manifestation  of  its  power.  Combine  the 
knowledge  of  literature  with  knowledge  of  the  'stream  of  the  world,' 
and  you  have  united  two  large  sources  of  the  influence  of  the  cul- 
tivated person." 

What  is  the  point  of  this  extract?  Do  you  agree  with  it?  De- 
fend your  position.  What  is  the  stream  of  ihe  world?  How  is  it  best 
learned?  What  is  the  effect  of  familiarity  with  it  upon  personality? 
upon  power  of  expression  in  speech,  or  in  writing? 

Discuss  the  relationship  of  knowledge — science,  history,  or 
technical  knowledge — to  culture;  to  success  in  writing. 


10  THE  WRITING  OF  ENGLISH 

3.  Read  the  following  extract  from  Kipling;  and  illustrate  from 
your  reading  of  modern  books  and  magazines:  (1)  the  first  two 
sentences;  (2)  the  first  clause  of  the  third  sentence;  (3)  the  second 
clause  of  the  third  sentence. 

Which  of  these  types  of  story  does  Kipling  write? 

Interpret  and  illustrate  the  fourth  and  fifth  sentences;  then 
estimate  the  value  of  the  literary  ideal  that  they  present. 

"Tell  them  first  of  those  things  that  thou  hast  seen  and  they 
have  seen  together.  Thus  their  knowledge  will  piece  out  thy  im- 
perfections. Tell  them  of  what  thou  alone  hast  seen,  then  what 
thou  hast  heard.  ...  All  the  earth  is  full  of  tales  to  him  who  listens 
and  does  not  drive  away  the  poor  from  his  door.  The  poor  are 
the  best  of  tale-tellers;  for  they  must  lay  their  ear  to  the  ground 
every  night." 


CHAPTER  H 
READING  ALOUD 

As  long  as  your  reading  remains  a  purely  mental  process, 
you  are  likely  to  get  only  half  or  a  quarter  or  one-tenth  of  the 
content  of  a  page,  or  even  to  do  no  more  than  skim  off  an  idea 
or  a  word  as  you  go;  and  when  you  turn  the  leaf,  you  your- 
self will  perhaps  be  unaware  how  much  or  how  little  you 
have  grasped.  Have  you  not  had  the  experience,  at  some  time 
when  your  mind  was  perplexed  or  troubled,  of  suddenly  be- 
coming aware  that  you  did  not  know  a  word  that  you  had 
been  reading?  Your  eye  had  been  following  word  after  word, 
but  your  mind  had  been  busy  with  its  own  problems. 

In  reading  aloud  such  abstraction  is  impossible.  The  mind 
has  to  be  focussed  upon  the  problems  of  pronunciation,  the 
relation  of  word  to  word,  of  phrase  to  phrase,  of  sentence  to 
sentence.  Especially  will  this  be  true  when  you  are  reading 
to  some  one  else.  Then  the  mind  must  be  alert  every  mo- 
ment, not  only  to  deal  adequately  with  the  mechanical  prob- 
lems of  utterance,  but  also — and  even  more — to  interpret 
for  the  listener  the  meaning  behind  the  words. 

Moreover,  there  are  certain  qualities  of  style  that  can- 
not be  adequately  realized  except  through  the  medium 
of  the  voice.  These  are  especially  tone-color  and  rhythm. 

By  tone-color  we  mean  the  combinations  of  sound  used  to 
make  the  word-expression  conform  to  the  ideas  in  beauty, 
harshness,  rapidity,  or  dignity,  or  even  to  make  the  sound  of 
the  word  actually  present  to  the  ear  the  thing  it  represents. 
Such  a  sentence  as  the  following  may  illustrate  what  is  meant 
by  this: 

A  grim  chuckle  followed   the  suggestion,  and   the  soft  wheep, 
wheep  of  unscabbarded  knives  followed  the  chuckle. — Kipling, 
11 


12  THE  WRITING  OF  ENGLISH 

But  even  when  the  words  do  not  actually  try  to  represent  the 
sound,  they  may  suggest  it  as  in  the  following  lines  of  Swin- 
burne the  song  of  the  swallow  is  suggested: 

O  swallow,  sister,  0  fair  swift  swallow 
and 

Sister,  my  sister,  O  fleet  sweet  swallow. 

So  the  rhythm  of  a  phrase,  of  a  sentence,  of  a  paragraph, 
is  sometimes  discovered  to  be  good  or  bad  only  when  the 
passage  is  read  aloud.  There  is  no  surer  or  swifter  test  of 
quality  in  writing  than  that  of  reading  aloud;  it  shows — and 
shows  up — in  a  moment,  beauties  and  faults  that  may  escape 
silent  reading  many  times.  The  following  sentence,  read 
silently,  may  seem  to  you  dull:  it  contains  an  abstract  idea 
presented  without  vividness  or  color.  But  if  you  read  it 
aloud  slowly  several  times,  you  will  begin  to  see  that  it  has 
a  beauty  of  its  own,  due  almost  entirely  to  the  rhythm  with 
which  it  moves;  and  that  this  rhythm  is  in  itself  an  aid  in 
conveying  the  idea: 

Free-heartedness,  and  graciousness,  and  undisturbed  trust,  and 
requited  love,  and  the  sight  of  the  peace  of  others,  and  the  ministry 
to  their  pain; — these,  and  the  blue  sky  above  you,  and  the  sweet 
waters  and  flowers  of  the  earth  beneath;  and  mysteries  and  pres- 
ences, innumerable,  of  living  things, — these  may  yet  be  here  your 
riches;  untormenting  and  divine;  serviceable  for  the  life  that  now  is; 
nor,  it  may  be,  without  promise  of  that  which  is  to  come. — Ruskin. 

In  the  next  four  sentences,  the  idea  in  each  case  is  concrete; 
but  when  you  read  them  aloud,  you  feel  as  if  you  were  bump- 
ing along  a  rutty  country  road: 

Andy  Gordon  was  for  all  his  years  a  weaver  in  the  mills  at  Glas- 
tonbury;  just  an  ordinary  human  stick  or  stone,  as  you  might 
call  it,  doing  his  mechanical  work  at  the  machine  like  a  machine — 
until  one  day  he  drew  his  pay,  before  you  could  say  Jack  Robinson, 
and  started  off  walking  anywhere. 

A  blue-jay,  in  a  cracked  crescendo,  was  attacking  the  established 
order  of  things  among  birds. 


READING  ALOUD  13 

Rosa  had  died  on  her  knees  in  the  nunnery  at  the  exact  time  he 
stabbed  yonder  picture. 

The  newspapers,  chronicling  Thorold's  appointment  briefly, 
were  heavy  with  harbingering  of  the  funeral  procession  of  the  boy 
who  had  fallen  a  fortnight  before  in  the  American  navy's  attack 
upon  Vera  Cruz. 

These  sentences  were  taken  almost  at  random  from  good 
modern  writers.  Reading  them  aloud  shows  up  many  other 
faults  besides  defective  rhythm.  Note,  for  instance,  in  the 
first,  the  jingle 

Until  one  day 
He  drew  his  pay. 

In  the  second,  note  the  mushiness  of  "cracked  crescendo" 
and  "established  order."  In  the  third,  note  the  alliteration 
"on  her  knees  in  the  nunnery";  and  the  jingle  of  "yonder 
picture."  In  the  last,  note  the  elephantine  "chronicling  .  .  . 
harbingering  of  the  funeral  procession";  and  the  succession 
of  jerks  in  the  last  clause:  "who  had  fallen — a  fortnight  be- 
fore— in  the  American  navy's  attack — upon  Vera  Cruz." 

Now  compare  with  the  above,  for  rhythm  alone,  the  follow- 
ing sentences: 

She  made  no  sign  when  Holden  entered,  because  the  human  soul 
is  a  very  lonely  thing  and,  when  it  is  getting  ready  to  go  away, 
hides  itself  in  a  misty  borderland  where  the  living  may  not  follow. 

— Kipling. 

Footsteps  and  signs,  the  tread  of  regiments  marching  in  the  dis- 
tance, the  chink  of  money  in  the  counting,  and  the  creaking  of 
doors  held  stealthily  ajar,  appeared  to  mingle  with  the  patter  of 
the  drops  upon  the  cupola  and  the  gushing  of  the  water  in  the 
pipes. — Stevenson. 

Reading  aloud,  then,  is  a  test  of  prose  as  of  poetry,  but 
only  when  it  is  well  done.  Under  ideal  conditions  the  mechan- 
ical difficulties  have  entirely  disappeared,  and  reader  and 
listener  form  a  partnership  for  re-creating  in  imagination  what 
the  writer's  imagination  has  put  into  the  visible  words. 

Now  mechanical  difficulties  are  actual  barriers  in  the  way 


14  THE  WRITING  OF  ENGLISH 

of  this  constructive  work.  The  reader  who  mispronounces 
words,  who  stumbles  as  to  the  end  of  sentences  and  clauses, 
and  has  to  go  back  and  repeat  portions  in  order  to  give  the 
proper  intonation  for  the  close,  diverts  his  listener's  attention 
from  the  meaning  of  what  he  is  trying  to  read  to  his  own 
struggles;  and  changes  interest  in  the  subject-matter  to 
sympathy  for  his  efforts,  or  to  the  wish  that  he  would  stop. 

These  difficulties  can  be  overcome.  The  habitual  use  of  the 
dictionary  in  cases  of  doubtful  pronunciation  will  soon  give 
a  reasonable  sense  of  security  in  this  respect;  and  the  habit 
of  sending  part  of  the  attention  forward  toward  the  end  of 
the  sentence  while  the  other  part  is  engaged  with  the  be- 
ginning— of  keeping  the  eyes  a  little  ahead  of  the  voice,  as  it 
were — will  gradually  eliminate  stumbling.  Until  this  balance 
of  attention  between  what  you  are  reading  and  what  you  are 
going  to  read  has  been  attained,  it  is  a  good  plan  to  read 
slowly — even  to  pause  between  sentences  long  enough  for  the 
eyes  to  take  a  hasty  run  ahead  to  prepare  the  voice  and  mind 
for  what  is  coming. 

But  mechanical  obstacles  to  successful  interpretation  do 
not  stop  here.  There  are  other  difficulties  which  are  not  so 
easily  overcome,  because  they  grow  out  of  the  defects  of  our 
speech  habits.  They  have  become  so  much  a  part  of  us  that 
even  when  they  are  pointed  out  to  us  and  we  recognize  them 
and  desire  to  amend,  the  process  of  establishing  better  habits 
is  necessarily  slow. 

These  defects  concern  enunciation,  intonation,  and  voice 
production.  Because  of  various  climatic  and  racial  and  other 
conditions,  into  which  it  is  unnecessary  to  enter  here,  we 
Americans  have  careless  speech  habits.  There  are  few  homes 
in  which  English  is  spoken  with  any  consciousness  of  its 
beautiful  qualities,  or  with  any  consideration  of  its  sound 
combinations  as  such;  there  are  probably  fewer  in  which 
there  is  any  thought  given  to  values  of  intonation  and  to 
voice  production.  People  who  speak  well  do  so  more  by 


READING  ALOUD  15 

happy  accident  of  birth  and  circumstance  than  by  reason  of 
any  effort  on  the  part  of  their  parents.  Whatever  the  lower 
schools  have  done  here  and  there  to  correct  speech  habits, 
the  fact  remains  that  most  young  people  to-day  do  not 
speak  well;  and — what  is  worse — they  do  not  know  that 
they  do  not  speak  well.  Under  such  circumstances,  it  seems 
worth  while,  at  the  very  beginning  of  the  year,  to  point  out 
some  of  the  commonest  defects,  and  to  suggest  as  a  partial 
remedy  practice  under  right  conditions  in  reading  aloud. 

Although  it  is  impossible  within  the  limits  of  this  book  to 
enter  into  the  problems  of  voice  production,  intonation,  and 
enunciation,  this  much  may  be  said:  A  discordant  voice,  an 
unpleasant  intonation,  and  defective  utterance  are  more 
often  due  to  ignorance  and  inattention  than  to  physical 
limitations.  Consequently,  the  mere  awakening  of  attention 
to  the  need  for  improvement  is  often  the  beginning  of  im- 
provement. If  your  voice  is  too  loud  or  too  weak  or  too  shrill 
or  too  husky,  the  mere  effort  to  make  it  softer  or  louder  or 
lower  or  clearer  will  produce  some  result;  and  persistent 
effort  in  this  direction  will  bring  about  a  permanent  change — 
if  you  begin  now  before  the  speech  habits  are  set.  Most 
people  who  talk  with  a  nasal  twang  are  quite  unaware  of  the 
fact;  to  become  aware  of  it  is  to  take  the  first  step  to  elim- 
inate it,  as  a  little  experiment  will  soon  show  you.  If  you 
talk  too  rapidly  and  indistinctly,  focussing  the  attention  on 
the  utterance  of  each  sound  will  be  corrective;  if  you  drawl, 
mere  speeding  up  will  give  a  sharper  definition  of  each  sound. 
In  a  word,  attention  turned  to  the  defect  so  that  it  is  clearly 
realized,  and  stress  laid  on  the  opposite  quality  until  balance 
is  established,  are  very  simple  remedies,  which  can  work  great 
changes  in  defective  and  unpleasant  speech  habits.  In  the 
application  of  both,  the  frankest  criticism  of  instructors, 
friends,  parents,  or  anyone  else  qualified  to  judge  is  absolutely 
essential,  both  for  the  initial  recognition  of  the  difficulty  and 
for  the  establishment  of  better  habits. 


16  THE  WRITING  OF  ENGLISH 

Most  of  all  is  it  important  to  get  rid  of  the  idea  that  it 
does  not  matter  how  you  speak.  A  bad  voice,  poor  enuncia- 
tion, careless  intonation — handicap  one  scarcely  less  than  bad 
manners  and  ignorance  of  social  customs.  They  do  so,  partly 
by  creating  prejudice  against  the  speaker,  and  partly  by 
making  him  feel  vaguely  awkward  and  ill  at  ease  among 
people  who  have  command  of  their  utterance. 

You  will  find  a  short  list  of  common  faults  in  enunciation 
and  pronunciation  in  Appendix  V. 

One  more  point  should  perhaps  be  emphasized.  Have  you 
ever  considered  how  closely  intonation  is  associated  with 
character?  Intonation  means  not  merely  the  pitch  of  the 
voice  but  all  the  modulations  by  which  it  is  made  to  express 
the  mental  attitude  of  the  speaker.  If,  for  example,  you  speak 
habitually  in  a  tone  of  apology  or  of  deference,  what  you  say 
will  carry  little  weight;  if,  on  the  other  hand,  you  use  ha- 
bitually a  tone  of  arrogance,  the  effect  of  your  speech  may  be 
quite  the  contrary  of  what  you  really  intend — it  may  repel 
instead  of  convincing.  You  remember,  of  course,  the  cringe 
in  Uriah  Heep's  voice,  the  oil  in  Mr.  Chadband's,  the  whine 
in  Mrs.  Gummidge's.  Moreover,  it  is  scarcely  an  exag- 
geration to  say  that  voice  and  intonation  sometimes  affect 
people  as  much  as  the  meaning  of  the  words.  An  extreme 
example  of  this  is  the  old  story  of  the  woman  who  wished  to 
prove  that  no  one  at  a  reception  listened  to  a  word  spoken 
by  anyone  else:  she  made  up  a  grewsome  tale  of  having 
murdered  her  husband  that  morning,  and  told  it  with  the 
manner  and  intonation  required  for  society  speeches,  and 
the  comments  everywhere  were  to  the  effect:  "How  charm- 
ing!" "How  perfectly  delightful!"  and  so  on.  But  in  all 
seriousness,  it  is  true  that  the  quiet,  confident  intonation 
of  a  voice  properly  pitched — so  that  it  will  penetrate 
without  irritating — often  does  more  to  persuade  and  to  con- 
trol than  the  most  effective  combinations  of  words  badly 
spoken  by  a  person  with  an  unpleasant  voice  and  an  in- 


READING  ALOUD  17 

tonation  that  creates  the  wrong  sort  of  response  within  the 
listener. 

The  sum  of  the  whole  matter  is  that  if  you  wish  your  use 
of  spoken  English  to  be  fully  effective,  you  cannot  begin  too 
soon  to  consider  your  faults  of  utterance,  or  strive  too  ear- 
nestly to  overcome  them.  You  will  find  from  contact  with 
the  world  that  the  man  who  not  merely  has  something  to 
say  but  can  also  say  it  unusually  well  has  in  himself  a  source 
of  great  power. 

The  following  poem  requires  no  dramatic  effort,  no  elocu- 
tion; the  more  simply  it  is  given,  the  more  it  will  appeal.  It 
needs  only  to  be  read  with  a  sense  of  the  values  of  sound, 
that  is,  with  clear  and  correct  utterance  of  every  sound  that 
is  intended  to  be  pronounced,  whether  this  occurs  in  an 
accented  or  in  an  unaccented  syllable,  without  slurring  over 
or  running  together  of  sounds  or  syllables,  and  with  pauses 
where  they  belong.  Before  you  begin,  remember  the  follow- 
ing points:  Oxford  =  Ox-ford,  not  Ox-furd;  pearl  =  purl,  not 
poil;  fast  is  not  fast;  gol-den  is  not  gol'n;  col-le-ges  is  not  col-li- 
juz;  care-less  is  not  care-luss;  riv-er  is  not  riv'r;  mer-ry  is  not 
mur-ry;  gentle-men  not  gen'lem'n;  instead  is  not  in-stid,  etc. 
These  are  only  some  of  the  common  mispronunciations  due 
to  sheer  carelessness. 

THE  SPIRES  OF  OXFORD 
I  saw  the  spires  of  Oxford 

As  I  was  passing  by — 
The  gray  spires  of  Oxford, 

Against  a  pearl-gray  sky. 
My  heart  was  with  the  Oxford  men 

Who  went  abroad  to  die. 

The  years  go  fast  in  Oxford, 

The  golden  years  and  gay. 
The  hoary  colleges  look  down 

On  careless  boys  at  play. 
But  when  the  bugles  sounded  war 

They  put  their  games  away. 


18  THE  WRITING  OF  ENGLISH 

They  left  the  peaceful  river, 

The  cricket-field,  the  quad, 
The  shaven  lawns  of  Oxford 

To  seek  a  bloody  sod — 
They  gave  their  merry  youth  away 

For  country  and  for  God. 

God  rest  you,  happy  gentlemen, 

Who  laid  your  good  lives  down, 
Who  took  the  khaki  and  the  gun 

Instead  of  cap  and  gown. 
God  bring  you  to  a  fairer  place 

Than  even  Oxford  town. 

—Winifred  M.  Letts 

After  the  poem  has  been  read  until  it  is  familiar,  discuss  it 
along  the  lines  suggested  by  the  following  questions: 

1.  Is  there  a  single  word  or  phrase  in  the  poem  that  might  not  be 
found  in  prose?    Then  what  gives  poetical  quality  to  the  lines? 

2.  Do  you  get  a  picture  of  Oxford?     Which  phrases  are  most 
definitely  pictorial?     In  what  colors  do  they  paint  the  picture? 
Can  you  find  a  view  of  Oxford  that  illustrates  the  first  two  lines? 

3.  What  features  of  university  life  are  mentioned?     Can  you 
enlarge  upon  these  hints  and  show  how  English  university  life 
differs  from  our  own? 

4.  Do  you  know  a  Christmas  carol  that  contains  a  line  very  like 
the  first  line  of  the  last  stanza?    What  is  the  difference?    Was  the 
change  necessary?     Why?    Does  this  reminiscence  of  old  English 
tradition  help  to  give  atmosphere  to  the  poem? 

5.  What  other  phrases  suggest  a  place  that  is  very  old  and  rich 
in  traditions?    How  is  the  character  of  life  at  Oxford  used  for  con- 
trast? 

6.  What  lines  or  phrases  are  especially  musical?     What  com- 
binations of  sound  produce  this  musical  effect?     Do  any  lines  or 
phrases  seem  to  you  unmusical? 

7.  Does  the  style  of  the  poem  seem  to  you  suited  to  the  nature  of 
its  content?    Can  you  choose  among  the  following  adjectives  any 
that  seem  to  you  to  sum  up  best  the  qualities  of  the  poem?    If  not, 
find  the  right  adjectives:  simple;  sincere;  pensive;  austere;  musical; 
atmospheric;  passionate;  suggestive;  elusive;  pictorial;  graceful;  haunt- 
ing; commonplace;  unassuming. 


READING  ALOUD  19 

ASSIGNMENT 

1.  Find  and  bring  to  class  a  poem  on  some  phase  of  the  War  that 
seems  to  you  good  enough  for  reading  and  discussion.     You  may 
find  it  in  a  magazine,  or  in  collections  of  poems  by  such  writers  as 
Rupert  Brooke,  Alan  Seeger,  Amelia  Burr,  John  Drinkwater,  John 
Masefield,  W.  W.  Gibson.     There  are  many  good  collections  of  war 
poetry.     The  following  are  among  the  best:  Clarke,  A  Treasury  of 
War  Poetry;  Cunliffe,  Poems  of  the  Great  War;  Osborn,  The  Muse 
in  Arms;  Wheeler,  Fifes  and  Drums.     Go  to  your  college  library  or 
periodical  room,  and   explore  for  at   least  two  hours  before  you 
make  your  choice.     Ask  the  attendant  in  charge  to  make  sugges- 
tions.    Do  not  be  satisfied  until   you  have  found  a  poem   that 
really  appeals  to  you;  and  do  not  be  disturbed  if,  after  class  dis- 
cussion, you  are  obliged  to  change  your  mind  about  it — that  is,  if 
you  find  that  it  will  not  bear  examination. 

2.  Learn  Miss  Letts 's  poem  so  that  it  becomes  a  permanent  pos- 
session; or  if  you  succeed  in  finding  another  War  poem  that  appeals 
•to  you  much  more  strongly,  and  you  are  able  to  maintain  your 
opinion  after  class  discussion,  learn  that  poem. 

For  further  practice  of  this  kind,  the  following  poems  are  sug- 
gested: Moody's  "  Song  of  Pandora"  in  The  Fire-Bringer,  beginning, 
"I  stood  within  the  heart  of  God";  Lanier's  "A  Ballad  of  Trees  and 
their  Master";  Gibson's  "Geraniums";  Yeats's  "The  Lake  Isle  of 
Innisfree." 


CHAPTER  in 
USE  OF  THE  LIBRARY 

WITH  The  Spires  of  Oxford  in  mind,  read  the  following  pas- 
sage from  Matthew  Arnold's  Culture  and  Anarchy: 

Oxford,  the  Oxford  of  the  past,  has  many  faults;  and  she  has 
heavily  paid  for  them  in  defeat,  in  isolation,  in  want  of  hold  upon 
the  modern  world.  Yet  we  in  Oxford,  brought  up  amidst  the 
beauty  and  sweetness  of  that  beautiful  place,  have  not  failed  to 
seize  one  truth, — the  truth  that  beauty  and  sweetness  are  essential 
characters  of  a  complete  human  perfection.  When  I  insist  on  this, 
I  am  all  in  the  faith  and  tradition  of  Oxford.  I  say  boldly  that  this 
our  sentiment  for  beauty  and  sweetness,  our  sentiment  against 
hideousness  and  rawness,  has  been  at  the  bottom  of  our  attachment 
to  so  many  beaten  causes,  of  our  opposition  to  so  many  triumphant 
movements.  And  the  sentiment  is  true,  and  has  never  been  wholly 
defeated,  and  has  shown  its  power  even  in  its  defeat.  We  have  not 
won  our  political  battles,  we  have  not  carried  our  main  points, 
we  have  not  stopped  our  adversaries'  advance,  we  have  not  marched 
victoriously  with  the  modern  world;  but  we  have  told  silently 
upon  the  mind  of  the  country,  we  have  prepared  currents  of  feeling 
which  sap  our  adversaries'  position  when  it  seems  gained,  we  have 
kept  up  our  own  communications  with  the  future. 

Do  you  see  why  the  prose  paragraph  has  been  quoted  in 
connection  with  the  poem?  What  criticisms  must  have  been 
made  upon  Oxford  to  warrant  Arnold's  defense?  Show  that 
the  poem  is  likewise  a  defense  of  the  spirit  of  the  University. 
Add  any  facts  that  you  may  happen  to  know  about  the  part 
of  university  men  in  the  War  and  in  public  service  generally. 

Taking  the  prose  and  verse  together,  can  you  understand 

the  depth  and  richness  of  the  appeal  that  Oxford  makes  to 

her  students?     Few  of  us  here  in  America  have  personal 

associations  with  Oxford;  but  through  literature  it  has  be- 

20 


USE  OF  THE  LIBRARY  21 

come  not  only  familiar  but  dear  to  cultivated  people  every- 
where. And  because  the  name  of  Oxford  is  so  charged  with 
emotional  associations,  the  bare  mention  of  it  in  the  prose 
and  verse  quoted  above  awakens  in  the  mind  old  impressions 
of  beauty  and  delight.  In  this  appeal,  then,  of  the  subject 
lies  part  of  the  charm  of  both  the  poetry  and  the  prose. 
Needless  to  say,  this  charm  would  have  been  lost  if  the  treat- 
ment had  been  out  of  tone  with  the  quality  of  the  subject — 
if,  for  instance,  it  had  been  florid,  that  is,  over-decorated,  or 
aggressive,  or  blatant,  or  in  any  way  vulgar  or  in  bad  taste. 

But  what,  you  may  ask,  does  all  this  mean  to  me? 

There  are  two  ways,  as  we  have  seen,  in  which  the  intellec- 
tual treasury  of  men  can  be  enriched  by  emotional  associa- 
tions: one  is  by  experience  of  life;  the  other,  by  experience  of 
literature  and  of  art  in  all  its  forms.  It  is  because  of  this 
power  to  contribute  richly  to  the  mental  life  where  actual 
experience  is  limited  or  entirely  impossible,  that  literature — 
and  with  it  should  be  associated  art — is  preeminently  worth 
while  among  studies.  The  Oxford  poem  appeals  to  us  through 
its  presentation  of  the  idea  that  careless  boys  have  left  their 
life  at  the  university,  so  crowded  with  interest  and  play,  in 
response  to  the  call  of  a  high  ideal  of  duty;  and  it  emphasizes 
the  fact  that  the  very  beauty  and  joy  of  their  life  at  Oxford 
and  the  weight  of  noble  tradition  associated  with  the  place 
have  been  largely  responsible  for  their  unhesitating  and  gen- 
erous response  to  the  ideal.  Matthew  Arnold,  in  a  very  differ- 
ent fashion,  also  declares  that  the  spirit  of  Oxford  always 
maintains  the  ideal — a  plea  which  the  poem  in  turn  illustrates 
most  concretely.  And  what  Oxford  does  directly  for  her 
own  students,  she  does  vicariously  for  all  students  who, 
knowing  her  only  through  literature,  find  in  their  own 
universities  something  of  her  spirit. 

Whether  your  own  college  be  one  which  has  behind  it  a 
mass  of  traditions  suggestive  of,  if  not  comparable  to,  the 
traditions  of  Oxford,  or  whether  it  be  a  new  college  which 


22  THE  WRITING  OF  ENGLISH 

has  not  yet  had  time  to  build  up  fine  cultural  traditions  of 
its  own,  there  is  one  part  of  it  which  will  supply  to  you  in  an 
unfailing  stream  the  same  spirit  and  the  same  ideals;  that  is 
the  library.  Wherever  any  considerable  number  of  books  is 
brought  together,  you  are  sure  to  find  among  them  a  sufficient 
number  of  the  great  books  of  the  world  to  make  that  library 
a  source  of  inspiration  and  guidance  to  you  if  you  will  use  it 
properly. 

There  are  two  profitable  things  to  do  with  a  library.  One 
is  to  browse;  that  is,  to  pick  up  the  books  that  attract  your 
eye,  to  read  in  them  as  long  as  you  are  interested,  and  to  drop 
them  when  your  curiosity  is  satisfied.  In  this  way  you  will 
find  the  things  that  belong  to  you;  you  will  gradually  assim- 
ilate a  multitude  of  impressions  and  ideas,  of  experiences 
which  have  been  lived  and  phrased  by  other  men;  and  all 
these  will  grow  into  and  form  a  part  of  your  personality. 
The  second  use  to  be  made  of  a  library  is  to  control  its  re- 
sources. To  do  this  you  must  train  yourself  so  that  you  can 
tell  in  a  moment  whether  or  not  it  contains  what  you  wish 
to  know  about  a  particular  subject;  so  that,  without  waste  of 
time  and  energy,  you  can  collect  and  organize  such  material 
as  it  has  to  give. 

These  two  ways  of  reading  are  diametrically  opposed  and 
supplementary  to  each  other.  In  browsing  you  give  the 
freeest  possible  play  to  your  own  tastes  and  interests,  and 
are  governed  by  no  laws  but  those  of  chance  or  the  associa- 
tion of  ideas;  but  in  gaining  control  of  the  resources  of  a 
library  you  must  subordinate  your  personal  inclinations  to 
impersonal  system,  or  you  will  fail.  It  has  been  found  by 
long  experience  that  there  is  one  best  way  to  master  a  library; 
and  this  way  you  must  learn  and  practise  if  you  would  ever 
feel  otherwise  than  helpless  in  the  presence  of  a  large  number 
of  books. 

In  browsing  you  must  go  to  the  shelves  in  order  that  one 
book  may  suggest  another;  but  it  is  obvious  that  you  would 


USE  OF  THE  LIBRARY  23 

need  a  lifetime  to  learn  in  this  way  the  range  of  a  large  library. 
The  short  cut  is  the  alphabetically  indexed  card  catalogue. 
The  best  catalogues,  as  a  rule,  combine  author  and  subject 
index  in  a.  system  rigidly  alphabetical.  In  order,  then,  to 
find  a  particular  book,  you  may  look  under  the  author's 
name.  If  you  do  not  know  this,  you  may  look  under  the 
title.  If  you  do  not  know  this,  you  may  look  under  the  gen- 
eral subject  covered  by  the  book.  Under  one  of  these  head- 
ings you  can  tell  in  a  few  moments  the  resources  of  any  library 
on  any  subject.  For  instance,  you  should  find  under  Oxford, 
as  well  as  under  the  names  of  authors  and  titles  of  books,  all 
that  your  library  has  on  this  subject. 

But  as  librarians  are  not  infallible,  and  card  indexes  are 
not  without  fault,  you  should  know  other  means  of  getting 
at  the  resources  of  a  library  when  these  fail  you.  Suppose, 
for  example,  that  your  catalogue  has  nothing  listed  under 
Oxford,  or  under  Universities,  and  suppose  that  you  know 
of  no  books  on  the  subject,  what  can  you  do?  Turn 
first  to  two  general  reference  books:  a  good  encyclopedia 
and  The  Reader's  Guide.  The  latest  edition  of  the  best 
encyclopedia  available  will  give  you  in  condensed  form  in- 
formation on  almost  any  subject;  and  at  the  end  of  each 
important  article,  it  will  name  some  of  the  best  authorities 
on  the  subject.  If,  then,  you  turn  to  the  volume  containing 
Oxford,  you  can  probably  get  from  the  references  at  the  end 
of  the  article  a  list  of  authors  who  have  written  on  that  sub- 
ject, and  the  titles  of  their  books.  Under  one  or  both  of 
these  heads  you  will  probably  find  such  books  as  your  library 
contains  on  the  subject;  or  if  you  have  further  difficulty,  you 
will  know  what  to  look  for  on  the  shelves.  If  your  subject  is 
not  important  enough  for  a  special  article  in  the  ency- 
clopedia, you  can  find  in  the  index  volume  of  that  work 
references  to  such  material  as  it  contains. 

For  the  great  mass  of  material  published  in  periodicals, 
there  are  special  indexes  in  which  both  subjects  and  authors 


24  THE  WRITING  OF  ENGLISH 

are  arranged  alphabetically.  These  enable  you  to  keep  in 
touch  with  current  literature.  They  do  not  include  techni- 
cal and  scientific  journals;  but  they  are  invaluable  as  far  as 
they  go.1 

Let  us  suppose  that  you  have  ordered  several  books  on 
Oxford,  and  have  obtained  them.  How  are  you  going  to 
apply  "system"  to  the  process  of  using  them?  Clearly  you 
cannot  read  even  one  book  from  first  to  last  at  a  sitting;  and 
even  if  you  could,  the  others  might  be  more  interesting  or 
more  valuable  for  your  purpose.  You  should  begin,  then,  by 
comparing  them;  and  the  quickest  and  most  satisfactory  way 
to  do  this,  is  by  reading  the  table  of  contents  of  each.  From 
these  you  can  tell  in  a  moment  the  general  scope  and  char- 
acter of  each  book,  and  so  judge  which  is  most  likely  to  give 
you  what  you  wish  to  know  about  the  subject. 

Let  us  be  more  specific.  What  do  you  wish  to  know  about 
Oxford?  The  poem  refers  to  the  "gray  spires."  To  form  a 
mental  image  of  these,  you  must  know  something  about  the 
architecture  of  Oxford.  Note  the  book  and  chapter  or  chap- 
ters which  will  tell  you  about  this.  The  poem  refers  to 
"hoary  colleges."  How  many  "colleges"  are  there  in  an 
English  university?  Here  is  something  different  from  our 
universities.  Which  table  of  contents  has  a  chapter  or  more 
on  the  "colleges"  of  Oxford?  The  third  stanza  of  the  poem 
touches  upon  the  outdoor  life;  turn  again  to  your  tables  of 
contents  for  this  subject. 

But  it  is  possible  that  your  tables  of  contents  are  not 
sufficiently  detailed  to  show  whether  the  book  contains  a 
certain  feature  or  not.  Then  turn  to  the  index.  It  is  always 
well  to  supplement  the  general  survey  of  a  book  by  means  of 
its  table  of  contents  with  some  trying  out  of  its  index. 

Now  you  are  ready  to  begin  to  read.    But  reading  is  only 

1  Of  these  the  most  useful  are:  The  Reader  s  Guide  (which,  however,  does 
not  include  some  of  the  best  English  literary  journals),  known  before  1900 
as  Poole's  Index  to  Periodical  Literature,  and  the  Annual  Magazine  Subject 
Index  (including  the  Dramatic  Index). 


USE  OF  THE  LIBRARY  25 

the  half  of  systematic  library  work;  the  other  half  is  note- 
taking.  To  take  notes  successfully,  you  must  provide  your- 
self with  the  proper  materials;  and  you  must  take  your  notes 
in  proper  form.  For  specific  directions  on  both  these  points, 
see  Appendix  II.  These  should  be  followed  with  exactitude 
as  regards  the  purchase  of  materials,  and  referred  to  upon 
every  occasion  of  doing  library  work  until  the  habit  of  cor- 
rectness and  completeness  in  the  form  of  the  notes  has  be- 
come established.  You  may  not  at  this  point  realize  the 
importance  of  system  as  applied  to  the  form  of  notes,  but  if 
you  once  allow  yourself  to  become  unsystematic  in  this 
respect,  you  will  later  find  great  difficulty  in  correcting 
your  tendencies  to  carelessness;  and  bad  habits,  if  persisted 
in,  will  lead  to  an  incalculable  waste  of  time  and  energy  in  the 
organization  of  material,  which  might  have  been  avoided  by 
systematic  note-taking. 

With  this  caution,  let  us  proceed  to  the  actual  business  of 
reading  and  taking  notes  about  Oxford  in  order  to  gain  in 
some  degree  the  background  of  knowledge  necessary  for 
thorough  appreciation  of  the  literature  about  it  that  we  have 
been  discussing.  You  have  singled  out  by  means  of  the 
tables  of  contents  certain  chapters,  and  by  means  of  the 
indexes,  certain  pages.  How  are  these  to  be  read?  Con- 
secutively? By  no  means. 

For  perfect  reading  of  the  poem  and  the  eulogy,  one 
would  endeavor  to  bring  into  consciousness  every  word  as  it 
stood  in  its  context,  rich  with  implications  of  experience, 
and  taking  color  from  the  interplay  of  phrasing;  one  would 
try  to  re-create  with  the  imagination  on  the  basis  of  one's  own 
experience  what  these  authors  had  first  lived  and  felt  and 
afterward  created  into  art. 

But  now  with  your  Oxford  books  before  you,  and  your 
packet  of  cards  or  slips  at  hand,  you  are  entering  upon  an 
entirely  different  process;  you  are  reading  for  information. 
That  you  must  later  build  this  information  up  into  a  part  of 


26  THE  WRITING  OF  ENGLISH 

your  consciousness  if  it  is  to  be  worth  anything  to  you,  is 
quite  another  matter;  at  present,  the  point  is,  how  to  get  it. 

The  best  general  rule  in  reading  for  information  is  to  skip 
all  that  does  not  concern  your  purpose;  and  to  digest  the  re- 
mainder. It  is  no  more  desirable  that  you  should  try  to  re- 
member every  idea  in  a  chapter  or  on  a  page  than  that  you 
should  try  to  eat  every  article  of  food  set  before  you  on  a 
table.  You  take  merely  what  you  need  and  wish;  and  this 
you  digest  and  assimilate.  If  you  begin  to  read  for  informa- 
tion, as  many  conscientious  students  do,  with  the  idea  that 
you  must  give  some  attention  to  every  one  of  the  four  hun- 
dred words  on  a  page,  and  every  one  of  the  four  thousand 
words  in  a  chapter,  you  will  soon  find  that  you  have  not 
enough  attention  to  go  round.  The  result  of  an  hour  or  two 
of  this  process  will  be  nothing  but  mental  fatigue  and  a 
confused  blur  of  impressions  that  fade  with  the  effort  to 
reproduce  them. 

The  situation  is  rather  this.  You  are  not  reading  for  in- 
formation hi  general;  you  are  reading  to  find  a  particular 
fact  or  group  of  facts.  Consequently,  your  mind  should  pass 
lightly  over  all  that  is  not  relative  to  its  search,  and  swoop 
like  a  hungry  hawk  upon  everything  on  any  page  that  is 
associated  with  the  quest  in  hand. 

In  such  reading  as  this  there  is  a  distinct  art — the  art  not 
so  much  of  skipping  what  is  irrelevant,  though  that  is  in- 
volved, as  the  art  of  hunting  for  what  you  need.  In  this 
process  your  attention  must  be  turned  two  ways  at  once:  it 
must  hold  steadily  before  it  the  object  of  the  reading,  and  it 
must  be  perpetually  alert,  as  the  eye  moves  down  the  page 
and  from  page  to  page,  to  grasp  every  sentence  that  con- 
tributes to  this  end,  and  to  neglect  all  others. 

Your  object  in  reading  may  be,  as  was  suggested  above, 
to  isolate  a  particular  phase  of  a  subject  for  use  in  another 
connection — for  example,  the  Bodleian  Library — or  it  may 
be  to  assimilate  as  many  as  you  can  of  a  group  of  associated 


USE  OF  THE  LIBRARY  27 

facts  about  some  complex  aspect  of  the  subject — as  the  his- 
tory of  the  foundation  of  the  various  colleges  at  Oxford. 

In  the  first  case,  the  danger  is  that  the  attention  will  wan- 
der from  the  quest  into  interesting  byways,  and  neglect  to 
come  back  to  the  point;  that  is,  that  your  method  of  reading 
may  insensibly  change  into  the  browsing  process.  In  this 
there  is  no  harm  except  when  you  do  not  get  what  you  are 
seeking.  To  obviate  this  trouble,  a  simple  plan  is  to  note  on 
a  card  the  subject  that  you  are  looking  for,  and  to  keep 
this  card  in  so  prominent  a  position  that  even  if  you  are 
led  astray  for  a  time  by  the  interest  of  other  subjects,  you 
do  not  forget  to  come  back  to  the  point. 

In  the  second  case,  where  you  are  trying  to  assimilate  a 
sequence  of  facts,  it  is  a  good  plan  to  keep  the  sequence  be- 
fore you  by  jotting  down  on  cards — a  point  on  a  card — each 
heading  that  is  given  in  the  text  as  a  page  heading,  a  par- 
agraph heading,  or  a  side  note,  or  that  suggests  itself  to  your 
mind  as  summing  up  a  considerable  portion  of  matter.  By 
making  these  cards  as  you  read,  you  will  do  much  toward 
fixing  in  your  mind  the  most  important  parts  of  the  printed 
matter  before  you. 

Your  chief  difficulty  at  first  will  be  to  pass  over  every- 
thing that  is  not  wanted,  and  to  miss  nothing  that  is 
wanted.  To  do  this  you  must  train  yourself  in  two  ways: 
To  read  by  phrases,  rather  than  by  words;  and  to  see  at  a 
glance  whether  a  page  contains  material  for  your  purpose. 

To  read  by  phrases  instead  of  words,  you  must  increase 
your  speed  in  the  mechanical  process  of  reading — of  passing 
the  eyes  over  the  words.  The  best  way  to  do  this  is  to  time 
yourself.  How  rapidly  can  you  read  a  page  of  a  novel  with- 
out consciously  skipping  a  word?  Make  tests  and  compare 
notes.  Whatever  your  speed  is,  the  chances  are  that  it  can 
be  increased.  A  page  a  minute  is  a  very  moderate  rate  of 
reading.  You  should  not  stop  short  of  this.  The  effect  of 
increasing  your  rate  of  speed  will  be  to  make  you  grasp  more 


28  THE  WRITING  OF  ENGLISH 

and  more  words  as  a  unit;  and  you  will  learn,  with  the  aid  of 
punctuation,  to  keep  together  those  that  function  together 
in  the  sentence. 

To  recognize  at  a  glance  whether  or  not  a  page  contains 
material  that  belongs  to  your  present  purpose  in  reading  is  a 
somewhat  different  process.  It  involves  first  a  hasty  sweep 
of  the  page  as  a  whole,  to  see  if  there  are  headlines  or  side- 
notes  which  sum  up  its  content.  If  so,  the  practiced  reader 
knows  at  once  whether  to  stop  or  to  go  on.  If  no  such 
guides  are  present,  he  can  usually  tell  from  the  opening  of  a 
paragraph  whether  or  not  it  is  likely  to  contain  anything  to 
the  point.  Men  who  consult  many  books  find  it  unnecessary 
even  to  read  sentences  in  order  to  know  what  is  on  the  page 
as  a  whole:  the  words  that  embody  the  chief  ideas  jump  up, 
as  it  were,  to  meet  their  attention;  these  ideas  are  at  once 
tested  in  the  light  of  what  is  already  familiar,  and  dropped 
or  absorbed,  as  the  case  may  require.  In  this  way  the  skilled 
reader  may  often  learn  in  a  few  moments  whether  pages  or 
even  chapters  of  a  book,  which  according  to  the  table  of 
contents  and  the  index  concern  the  subject  in  hand,  have 
really  anything  to  contribute  to  his  knowledge  or  not. 

At  first,  of  course,  you  will  make  many  mistakes :  you  will 
skip  the  wrong  things;  you  will  miss  many  points.  To  return 
to  the  figure  of  the  hawk:  your  mind  may  go  hungry  at  first 
because  it  swoops  on  stones,  mistaking  them  for  food;  but 
this  is  better  than  trying  to  eat  everything  in  sight  and  so 
acquiring  a  permanent  mental  indigestion  and  an  enduring 
nausea  for  reading  in  all  its  forms. 

Unless  you  learn  to  read  rapidly  and  by  phrase-units,  and 
unless  you  acquire  the  habit  of  instaneous  recognition  of  what 
is  new  and  to  your  purpose  in  a  great  mass  of  facts,  your 
mind  will  move  after  the  fashion  of  the  squirrel  running 
round  the  cylinder  in  his  cage.  You  may  become  very  famil- 
iar with  what  you  do  know;  but  you  will  never  know  much. 

An  important  practical  question  in  connection  with  library 


USE  OF  THE  LIBRARY  29 

work  is:  How  long  shall  it  be  continued  without  interruption? 
The  answer  to  this  depends  upon  the  individual;  but  it  will 
be  determined  by  answering  a  further  question:  How  long 
can  I  concentrate?  Concentration  means  focusing  upon  the 
work  in  hand  the  full  power  of  the  mind  so  that  it  is  absolutely 
inattentive  to  everything  outside.  Half  an  hour  of  active 
focusing  upon  a  book  is  worth  half  a  day  of  turning  pages  and 
merely  gleaning  ideas  as  they  force  themselves  upon  the  at- 
tention. The  way  to  get  results  in  library  work  is  to  focus  as 
long  as  you  can — that  is,  until  your  attention  begins  to  wan- 
der— and  then  to  interrupt  or  change  your  work  for  a  few 
moments  until  your  mind  recovers  its  elasticity.  As  con- 
centration is  aided  by  getting  the  right  physical  conditions, 
a  quiet  corner,  an  upright  posture,  elbow  room  and  proper 
materials  for  note-taking,  so  the  necessary  relief  between 
periods  of  concentration  is  secured  often  merely  by  rising  to 
get  another  book,  or  to  consult  the  catalogue,  or  to  take  a 
breath  of  air.  The  results  of  alternating  periods  of  working 
at  your  best  with  moments  of  relief  are  incomparably  better 
than  long  hours  of  steady  sitting  over  books. 

ASSIGNMENT 

1.  Prepare  notes  to  be  used  in  class  discussion  of  the  resem- 
blances and  differences  between  English  and  American  university 
life.    The  following  books,  in  addition  to  references  in  The  Reader's 
Guide,  will  furnish  you  material: 

Thomas,  Edward,  and  Fulleylove,  John,  Oxford. 
Corbin,  John,  An  American  at  Oxford. 
Wells,  J.,  Oxford  and  its  Colleges. 
Wells,  J.,  Oxford  and  Oxford  Life. 
Thompson,  A.  H.,  Cambridge  and  its  Colleges. 
Firth,  J.  B.,  The  Minstrelsy  of  Isis:  An  Anthologij  of  All  Poems 
Relating  to  Oxford,  and  All  Phases  of  Oxford  Life. 
Mackenzie,  Compton,  Youth's  Encounter. 

2.  Write  a  statement  in  about  300  words  of  your  difficulties  and 
problems  in  connection  with  library  work.    Notes  should  be  com- 
pared and  discussed  in  class  with  a  view  to  finding  suggestions  as 
to  better  methods  and  habits  of  work. 


CHAPTER  IV 
USE  OF  THE  DICTIONARY 

A  child  learning  to  read  sees  blind  black  scratches  and  dots  on  a 
white  background,  and  wonders  at  the  stupid  senseless  things;  but 
the  grown  man  sees  neither  scratches  nor  dots.  He  does  not  see  the 
letters  at  all.  They  have  become  transparent,  and  he  sees  through 
them  to  the  things  which  they  indicate. — Edward  Carpenter. 

But  does  he?  He  sees  of  course  words.  But  what  is  a 
word?  The  French  critic  Taine  discusses  the  question  how 
it  is  that  black  scratches  on  paper  can  be  made  to  represent 
or  explain  one  man's  experience  of  life  to  another: 

By  what  miracle  do  three  letters  make  you  see  a  donkey  (French, 
ane),  and  five  letters  a  dog  (French,  ckien)?  The  reason  is  that 
while  there  are  some  words  which  are  dead  and  dry,  such  as  phil- 
osophical terms  and  ciphers,  others  there  are  which  are  as  living  as 
the  vibrations  of  a  violin,  or  the  tones  of  a  picture.  Or  rather,  in 
the  beginning  they  are  all  alive  and,  so  to  speak,  charged  with 
sensations,  as  a  young  bud  is  full  of  sap;  it  is  only  in  the  course  of 
their  growth,  and  after  a  long  period  of  transformations  that  they 
begin  to  fade,  to  stiffen  and  end  by  becoming  bits  of  dead  wood. 

But  do  we  deal  with  words  in  this  vital  way?  For  most  of 
us,  according  to  Taine : 

Words  take  the  place  of  the  images  that  they  indicate,  and  most 
of  the  time  they  do  not  evoke  these  images.  When  we  read,  and 
even  when  we  think,  we  do  not  see  behind  each  word  the  corre- 
sponding image.  The  word  alone  is  in  our  minds,  a  dry,  algebraic 
sign  which  suffices  for  us  because  it  is  understood  and  familiar,  and 
because  we  know  that  we  can  at  any  moment  replace  it  by  the  image. 
But  as  long  as  this  evocation  is  not  made,  there  can  be  no  original 
thought,  no  creative  work.  .  .  . 

Now  consider  this:  the  fitting  of  the  images  and  ideas 
in  our  minds  to  the  words  that  will  most  completely  carry 


USE  OF  THE  DICTIONARY  31 

these  images  and  ideas  to  other  minds  is  the  first  step  in 
sentence-building;  and  the  sentence  is  the  smallest  unit  in 
the  expression  of  thought:  the  Latin  sententia  means  a 
thought.  Then  before  you  can  make  any  headway  in  speak- 
ing and  writing  you  must  acquire  words  and  learn  how  to 
use  them. 

By  far  the  best  way  to  do  this  is  to  read  much  and  widely, 
and  with  your  mind  alert  to  grasp  not  only  every  new  word 
but  every  new  shade  of  meaning  given  to  a  familiar  word 
by  its  context.  This  method,  however,  is  the  process  of  a 
lifetime;  it  cannot  be  hurried;  it  is  never  at  an  end.  The 
best  single  aid  to  the  mastery  of  words  is  the  intelligent 
use  of  the  dictionary.  This  does  not — cannot — take  the 
place  of  the  quest  for  words  through  reading;  but  it  sup- 
plements this.  It  is  a  sort  of  mental  First  Aid,  or  Present 
Help;  it  keeps  the  wolf  from  the  door  when  the  vocabulary 
cupboard  is  empty.  The  reading  of  the  dictionary  is,  more- 
over, the  source  of  a  distinct  and  peculiar  pleasure — a 
pleasure  which  even  educated  people  do  not  always  ap- 
preciate. 

The  first  rule  for  the  use  of  the  dictionary  is:  Choose  a 
good  one.  Unquestionably  the  best  of  all  is  the  still 
incomplete  New  English  Dictionary,  which  is  being  pub- 
lished in  many  volumes  by  the  Clarendon  Press  at  Oxford. 
This  is  really  a  series  of  little  biographies  of  words;  it  tells 
all  that  any  reasonable  person  could  desire  to  know  about 
the  origin,  history,  and  associations  of  a  word,  and  enriches 
its  explanations  with  many  plums  of  quotations.  But  this 
is  an  expensive  work  and  not  always  available;  and  the  next 
in  desirability  are  the  New  International,  the  Standard,  and 
the  Century.  If  these  are  beyond  your  means,  you  should 
purchase  either  Webster's  Collegiate  Dictionary  or  the  Standard 
of  corresponding  size. 

To  do  this  is  most  important,  as  the  second  rule  for  the 
dictionary  is:  Have  it  always  at  hand.  The  wise  student  may 


32  THE  WRITING  OF  ENGLISH 

even  go  so  far  as  to  buy  also  a  pocket  dictionary  for  emer- 
gencies; but  no  pocket  dictionary  is  sufficiently  accurate  or 
detailed  to  take  the  place  of  the  larger  work. 

But  what  is  the  "intelligent  use  of  the  dictionary?" 
People  who  stop  reading  to  look  up  every  word  that  they  do 
not  fully  understand  are  as  rare  as  saints.  It  is  only  when 
readers  come  face  to  face  with  a  word  that  conveys  no  mean- 
ing whatever  that  they  will — some  of  them — if  there  is  a  dic- 
tionary within  easy  reach — turn  to  it  for  explanation.  Sup- 
pose you  read: 

Shakerly  hurled  the  palimpsest  upon  which  he  had  just  wasted 
a  small  fortune  in  Dodson's  face,  ejaculating:  "Fraud!"  Dodson, 
his  left  eye  bleeding  from  a  cut  where  the  sharp  edge  struck  him, 
crumpled  it  up  and  threw  it  into  the  fire. 

This  passage  would  probably  drive  you  to  the  dictionary,  to 
find  out  what  kind  of  missile  could  be  a  fraud,  could  cost  a 
fortune,  could  cut  an  eye,  and  could  be  crumpled  up  and 
burned.  If  you  look  up  the  word  palimpsest  in  your  dic- 
tionary, you  will  find  something  like  this: 

A  parchment,  tablet,  etc.,  which  has  been  used  two  or  more  times, 
the  earlier  writing  being  erased. 

The  derivation  is  given  as  from  two  Greek  words  which 
mean  to  rub  and  again.  How  much  idea  does  this  give 
you  of  the  meaning  of  this  word?  Why  should  the  parch- 
ment have  been  used  two  or  three  times?  Why  does 
the  definition  say  parchment  and  not  paper?  Why  was  the 
writing  erased?  Who  erased  it  and  who  wrote  on  the  parch- 
ment again?  Obviously,  the  word  palimpsest  is  rich  with 
associations  and  implications  that  cannot  be  explained  in  a 
small  dictionary.  In  such  a  case  as  this,  then,  you  must 
either  go  to  a  large  dictionary,  or  leave  the  passage  only 
partly  understood,  and  be  yourself  the  poorer  for  not 
knowing  an  important  and  curious  fact  in  literary  history. 
An  extraordinary  word  of  this  type  is  sometimes  worth  a 


USE  OF  THE  DICTIONARY  33 

special  visit  to  the  library  in  order  to  consult  the  Oxford 
Dictionary,  which,  you  may  be  sure,  will  give  you  vital  and 
sufficient  information. 

A  third  rule  for  using  the  dictionary  is :  Learn  its  system. 
Read  with  care  its  preface  and  table  of  contents.  You  will 
see  that  it  will  supplement  your  imperfect  knowledge  of 
spelling,  pronunciation,  and  capitals;  that  it  will  brush  up 
your  shabby  grammar;  that  it  will  give  the  etymology  of 
words,  definitions  of  them,  and  to  some  extent  illustrations 
of  their  proper  use;  that  it  will  supply  lists  of  synonyms  or 
words  nearly  equivalent  in  meaning,  and  explain  briefly 
the  chief  differences  between  words  that  convey  almost  the 
same  ideas;  that  it  will  show  you  how  derivatives  are  formed 
from  root  words;  that  it  will  teach  you  which  words  are  slang, 
obsolete,  archaic,  or  colloquial,  in  order  that  you  may  be 
warned  against  using  them  without  consideration  of  their 
effect;  and  that  where  explanations  in  words  may  not  give  a 
sufficient  idea  of  the  thing  defined,  it  will  often  add  a  picture 
of  the  thing  itself.  Moreover,  you  will  find  that  its  informa- 
tion is  not  limited  to  typical  and  universal  things  and  ideas, 
but  that  it  includes  also  lists  of  proper  names  which  stand  for 
individual  persons  and  places,  and  gives  the  fundamental 
facts  about  them.  And  finally,  you  will  see  in  it  a  glossary 
of  common  phrases  borrowed  from  foreign  languages,  and  a 
list  of  abbreviations  in  common  use  among  printers  and 
writers. 

Before  you  begin  to  work  with  any  dictionary,  you  should 
make  yourself  familiar  with  its  methods  of  presenting  in- 
formation. You  should,  for  instance,  look  for  the  table  of 
abbreviations  of  which  it  makes  use,  or  you  will  not  be  able 
to  understand  in  some  cases  information  given  in  abbreviated 
form.  Can  you,  for  example,  say  offhand  what  is  meant  by 
the  following:  W.,  Skr.,  perh.,  p.a.,  Com.,  com.,  Ex.,  exc.,  g., 
G.,  incho.,  I.e.,  NGr.?  Again,  you  must  understand  the 
diacritic  marks,  or  you  will  not  be  able  to  pronounce  according 


34  THE  WRITING  OF  ENGLISH 

to  instructions.  You  should  also  understand  why  the  forms 
and  the  meanings  stand  in  a  given  order. 

Meanings  are  in  some  dictionaries  arranged  in  their  his- 
torical order,  so  that  we  can  trace  the  development  of  the 
word  from  its  origin  down  to  its  most  recent  uses;  in  others 
the  meanings  are  arranged  in  the  order  of  their  importance, 
the  commonest  being  placed  first.  These  points  should  not 
be  forgotten  in  looking  up  the  meaning  of  a  word.  And,  as 
was  said  before,  it  is  most  important  to  look  for  such  char- 
acterizations of  a  word  as  Slang,  Archaic,  obs.  or  obsoles., 
colloq.,  dial.,  etc.,  if  you  would  learn  to  know  words  not  as 
mere  combinations  of  letters,  but  as  beings  rich  with  associa- 
tions of  all  kinds,  and  alive  with  infinite  possibilities. 

A  fourth  rule  for  the  use  of  the  dictionary  is :  Take  your 
time.  If  in  looking  up  a  new  word  you  are  content  with  a 
hasty  glance  at  the  first  meaning,  the  chances  are  great  that 
you  will  soon  have  to  look  up  the  same  word  again,  partly 
because  you  did  not  learn  the  range  of  its  meanings,  and 
partly  because  you  did  not  dwell  long  enough  upon  even  the 
one  meaning  for  the  impression  to  remain.  Moreover,  the 
awakening  of  surprise  or  interest  as  you  explore  into  the 
origin  and  associations  of  a  word,  and  note  curious  details 
about  its  history  or  use,  will  be  a  great  aid  in  so  fixing  a  word 
in  your  memory  that  it  will  offer  itself  when  you  have  use  for 
it.  When  you  can  afford  to  do  so,  you  should  take  the  time 
to  look  up  a  word  in  all  its  bearings:  spelling,  pronunciation, 
origin,  history,  changes  in  meaning  and  range  of  meanings, 
associations  and  character,  and  synonyms,  perhaps  even  some 
grammatical  peculiarity  connected  with  it.  In  this  kind  of 
work  you  will  do  well  to  form  the  habit  of  using  both  the 
unabridged  and  abridged  dictionaries.  For  simple,  common 
words,  to  which  the  unabridged  dictionaries  give  much  space 
because  of  historical  or  dialectical  usage,  you  will  find  the 
smaller  dictionary  ample;  and  the  complexity  of  the  larger 
work  may  only  confuse  you.  But  for  unusually  interesting 


USE  OF  THE  DICTIONARY  35 

words,  even  when  the  smaller  dictionary  gives  adequate 
definitions  of  them,  you  will  find  in  the  larger  dictionary  a 
wealth  of  curious  fact  and  illustration  that  will  tend  to  make 
such  words  your  own  forever. 

A  leisurely  attitude  in  dictionary  work  has  the  further 
advantage  that  it  gives  the  eye  a  chance  to  glean  by  the  way. 
As  you  skim  the  page  headings,  looking  for  the  alphabetical 
combination  that  will  guide  you  to  your  word,  if  your  atten- 
tion is  attracted  by  a  strange  word,  do  you  take  a  moment 
to  gratify  your  curiosity  about  it?  The  habit  of  doing  so  is 
an  invaluable  asset  to  anyone  who  would  write.  It  serves 
to  store  up  innumerable  words  which  gradually  pass  from 
the  conscious  to  the  subconscious  mind,  where  they  may  live 
for  years  and  then  suddenly  pop  back  into  consciousness  when 
the  mind  is  calling  for  what  they  can  supply.  The  explana- 
tion of  this  fact  lies  in  the  theory  that  the  mind  does  not 
really  forget  even  when  it  seems  to  forget — that  an  impression 
once  registered  may  lie  in  darkness  for  years  and  be  called 
into  light  by  some  chance  association  of  ideas.  For  this 
reason  it  is  worth  while  to  take  the  time  whenever  you  can  to 
register  impressions  of  the  words  which  arouse  a  momentary 
curiosity  as  you  pass  them  by.  Here,  for  instance,  is  a  list 
of  page  headings  taken  at  random:  crampon;  feldspathic; 
fencible;  gripple;  lich  gate;  parbuckle;  trepang;  zymotic — do 
you  know  the  meanings  of  these?  Each  of  them  might  be 
useful  in  speech  or  writing  some  day. 

ASSIGNMENT 

1.  Prepare  notes  in  proper  form,  for  use  in  class  discussion,  on 
the  arrangement  of  the  dictionary  that  you  intend  to  use  in  con- 
nection with  your  English  work. 

2.  Spend  half  an  hour  glancing  at  the  page  headings  of  this  dic- 
tionary, and  jotting  down  the  words  that  attract  your  attention 
there,  and  seem  to  you  worth  remembering.     See  how  many  you 
can  collect  in  that  time.    Put  with  each  its  fundamental  meaning, 
unless  you  are  sure  that  you  can  remember  this. 


36  THE  WRITING  OF  ENGLISH 

3.  Note  on  cards  the  most  interesting  facts  that  you  can  find 
about  twenty  or  more  of  the  following  words.     Use  the  best  dic- 
tionary available,  and  use  a  card  for  each  word:  alcohol;  amazon; 
amethyst;  antics;  antimacassar;  baccalaureate;  banal;  bane;  barbarian; 
biscuit;  bizarre;  blackguard;  boycott;  brat;  burly;  cabal;  crone;  curfew; 
cynic;  dismal;  doff  and  don;  dunce;  echo;  galvanize;  good-bye;  gossip; 
Gothic;  grotesque;  heliotrope;  humor;  hyacinth;  impediment;  jerry- 
built;  jersey;   knave;   labyrinth;   lunatic;   lute;   melancholy;   pagan; 
philopena;  pianoforte;  posy;  sandwich;  silly;  sincere;  soldier;  soph- 
omore; spinster;  stoical;  tantalize;  tawdry;  titanic;  tribulation;  tulip; 
turquoise;  umbrella;  villain;  volcano;  volt. 

4.  Explore  your  librarj'  for  answers  to  the  following  questions: 
How  many  words  are  there  in  the  English  language?    How  many 

of  these  are  used  by  the  average  uneducated  man?  by  the  average 
college  man?  How  many  were  used  by  Shakespeare?  by  any  other 
writer  of  note?  From  what  languages  are  English  words  derived? 
What  types  of  words  were  contributed  by  Latin?  Greek?  French? 
Dutch?  Arabic?  Work  out  this  idea  as  fully  as  you  can.  How 
are  new  words  formed  to-day?  Find  examples  of  words  recently 
formed  from  the  names  of  men;  from  the  names  of  newly  invented 
things;  in  other  ways. 

5.  Make  notes  for  class  discussion  of  the  following  subjects: 
Have  you  the  right  to  make  new  words  as  you  need  them?    Has 

a  newspaper  the  right?  Has  an  author  of  established  reputation? 
Who  has  such  a  right?  What  conditions  should  be  attached  to  the 
formation  of  new  words? 


CHAPTER  V 
GOOD  FORM 

THE  value  of  good  form  in  writing  appears  from  the  follow- 
ing story.  Several  years  ago,  a  banker  was  shown  a  hundred 
letters  written  by  college  graduates,  and  was  asked  which  of 
the  writers  he  would  consider  as  possible  applicants  for  a 
position.  He  threw  aside  with  a  mere  glance  more  than  two- 
thirds  of  them.  Why?  Because  the  letters  were  in  bad  form, 
badly  written,  badly  capitalized,  badly  punctuated,  badly 
spelled,  and  not  free  from  bad  faults  in  grammar.  Of  the 
thirty  remaining,  only  three  or  four  could  have  been  graded 
above  eighty  per  cent. 

This  banker  was  not  looking  for  graces  of  style;  but  he  was 
alert  to  the  value  of  a  decent  degree  of  correctness  in  form. 
He  knew  that  good  form  in  writing,  like  good  address  in 
speech,  opens  the  way  to  success  in  dealing  with  men.  For 
this  reason  alone,  it  is  well  to  have  a  very  high  standard  in 
all  the  externalities  of  speech  and  of  writing.  As  in  speech, 
pronunciation,  enunciation,  intonation,  voice,  gesture,  man- 
ner, take  part  in  the  successful  conduct  of  life,  so  in  writing, 
the  choice  of  paper,  pen,  and  ink,  the  arrangement  of  the 
pages  and  of  the  writing  on  the  page,  the  punctuation,  cap- 
italization, spelling,  and  grammar,  enter  into  the  reader's 
judgment  of  the  product  far  more  widely  than  the  student 
sometimes  believes. 

But  it  is  one  thing  to  realize  the  importance  of  perfection 
in  form;  quite  another,  to  attain  it.  As  soon  as  you  begin  to 
think  about  good  form,  you  become  acutely  afraid  of  stepping 
on  the  toes  of  some  unsuspected  rule.  How  are  confidence 
and  ease  to  be  gained?  Simply  by  living  always — at  least 
37 


38  THE  WRITING  OF  ENGLISH 

throughout  freshman  English! — with  two  watchwords: 
Attention,  and  Habit. 

Attention  is  fundamental,  because  you  have  doubtless  for 
some  years  been  magnificently  inattentive  to  these  trifles,  or 
you  would  not  now  be  having  difficulty  with  them.  Habit  is 
fundamental,  because  you  should  have  formed  habits  in 
your  childhood  which  would  now  be  as  natural  as  your  ways 
of  eating  and  drinking,  and  because  unless  you  begin  at  once 
to  form  such  habits,  you  will  all  your  days  either  be 
handicapped  by  your  errors,  or  burdened  with  rules  and 
miserable  in  never  being  sure  that  you  have  remembered 
them  all. 

Attention  corrects  many  faults  by  a  single  and  momentary 
focusing  of  the  mind  on  a  particular  point  of  literary  eti- 
quette or  a  single  unsuspected  lapse  from  good  taste.  For 
instance,  if  you  read  now  that  you  will  create  prejudice 
against  yourself  by  using  cheap  paper,  which  makes  blots, 
lined  paper,  which  suggests  that  you  need  guidance  to  write 
straight,  perfumed  or  tinted  paper,  which  attracts  attention 
to  itself,  gilt-edged  paper,  or  paper  stamped  with  a  gilt  initial 
or  some  other  cheap  or  showy  ornament,  which  suggests 
in  you  a  love  of  cheap  finery — if  you  read  this  once,  the 
chances  are  great  that  you  will  never  offend  good  taste  in 
any  of  these  respects. 

Nor  will  you  wish  to  suggest  poverty  by  using  paper  and 
envelopes  that  do  not  match,  or  by  writing  on  torn  half  sheets ; 
or  lack  of  courtesy  by  using  faded  or  cheap  ink  that  strains 
your  correspondent's  eyes;  or  bad  taste  by  using  gaudy  ink 
that  suggests  to  his  imagination  a  person  of  barbaric  ties  or 
ribbons.  Further,  if  you  have  had  to  read  many  letters 
written  in  pencil,  you  will  see  the  advisability  of  using  ink 
whenever  you  can. 

Finally,  a  bare  hint  should  suffice  to  make  you  seek  out  the 
kind  of  pen  that  suits  your  way  of  writing.  A  pen  that 
scratches  and  digs  into  the  paper,  or  one  that  blots  at  un- 


GOOD  FORM  39 

suspected  intervals,  is  a  source  of  torture  to  the  writer  and 
of  irritation  or  amusement  to  the  reader. 

All  such  matters  are  easily  disposed  of  by  a  single  sugges- 
tion. But  principles  of  spelling,  problems  in  punctuation, 
usage  in  grammar,  must  be  dealt  with  first  by  calling  atten- 
tion to  them,  and  then  by  establishing  the  habit  of  invariable 
correctness  in  one  case  after  another  until  all  have  been 
mastered. 

The  main  features  of  good  form  in  writing  are  the  follow- 
ing: 

1.  The  proper  preparation   of  the   manuscript,  the  size 
and  arrangement  and  numbering  of  pages,  spacing  on  the 
page,  including  margins  and  indentions,  and  penmanship; 

2.  The  proper  use  of  capitals  and  italics; 

3.  Correct  spelling; 

4.  Intelligent  punctuation; 

5.  Observance  of  grammar  and  idiom. 

In  this  chapter  your  attention  will  be  called  to  the  essentials 
of  all  these  aspects  of  good  form;  in  the  Appendix,  pp.  413ff., 
you  will  be  given  full  details.  There  each  paragraph  will  be 
numbered  and  indexed,  so  that  when  you  are  in  doubt  as  you 
write  a  paper,  you  can  quickly  turn  to  specific  information 
on  the  point  in  question;  and  similarly,  a  marginal  number 
used  by  the  instructor  to  indicate  an  error  will  at  once  put 
you  in  the  way  of  correcting  it. 

In  regard  to  the  mechanical  features  of  writing,  the  one 
rule  to  be  followed  is:  Conform  to  custom.  In  the  case  of  a 
personal  letter,  be  guided  by  the  best  social  usage;  in  the  case 
of  a  business  letter,  imitate  the  practice  of  the  leading  busi- 
ness houses;  in  the  case  of  a  manuscript,  keep  to  the  conven- 
tions established  by  editors.  For  specific  directions  see 
Appendix  I. 

The  use  of  capital  letters  to-day  is  a  very  simple  matter. 
Formerly  they  were  inserted  freely  at  any  point  in  the  sen- 
tence, whenever  an  abstract  idea  was  personified  (see  any 


40  THE  WRITING  OF  ENGLISH 

long  poem  of  the  eighteenth  century),  or  when  emphasis  was 
desired  (see  any  page  of  Carlyle).  To-day  the  tendency  is  to 
use  as  few  as  possible.  They,  however,  serve  two  distinct 
purposes.  First,  they  are  a  means  of  punctuation.  They 
separate  (1)  thought  from  thought  when  they  begin  sentences; 
and  (2)  rhythm  from  rhythm  when  they  begin  lines  of  verse. 
Second,  they  are  a  means  of  individualization;  they  separate 
an  individual  from  the  class,  or  a  group  regarded  as  a  unit  on 
the  basis  of  some  common  quality  or  qualities  from  a  larger 
class.  Thus: 

John  Smith  is  an  individual  to  be  distinguished  from  the  class  man. 
Cubists  are  to  be  distinguished  from  the  larger  class  artists. 

If  you  remember  always  to  apply  the  test  whether  your 
word  identifies  an  individual,  or  merely  refers  to  him  as  any 
member  of  a  class,  you  will  have  no  difficulty  in  the  use  of 
capitals.  In  cases  of  doubt  refer  to  Appendix  III. 

Italics  have  two  general  uses.  As  an  alternative  to  quota- 
tion marks,  they  separate  small  portions  of  text  from  the 
surrounding  matter  for  the  sake  of  clearness;  they  are  a  form 
of  punctuation.  Thus  they  distinguish  the  title  of  a  book,  or 
the  name  of  a  ship,  from  the  name  of  an  individual;  and  they 
show  quotation  of  a  word  or  short  group  of  words.  For 
details  of  these  uses  see  Appendix  III.  Second,  they  are 
used  for  emphasis.  In  this  use  they  are  limited  mainly  to 
highly  emotional  dialogue,  and  even  there  should  be  used 
sparingly.  In  all  other  writing  the  structure  and  order  of  the 
sentence  should  throw  upon  each  word  the  degree  of  em- 
phasis that  it  ought  to  bear. 

You  may  be  surprised  to  hear  that  spelling  can  be  taught. 
Some  of  you  may  even  flatter  yourselves  that  you  belong  to 
that  interesting  class  of  persons  who  "cannot  learn  to  spell." 
You  are  quite  mistaken:  there  is  no  such  class — outside  the 
insane  asylum.  If  you  have  not  yet  learned  to  spell,  you 
should  begin  at  once  to  do  so  by  applying  in  special  ways  the 


GOOD  FORM  41 

two  watchwords  suggested  above:  Attention  and  Habit. 
With  a  good  dictionary  at  hand,  there  is  no  reason  why,  even 
when  you  are  in  the  process  of  learning  what  should  have  been 
learned  some  years  ago,  you  should  not  write  papers  that  are 
practically  perfect  in  this  respect.  But  although  the  dic- 
tionary is  an  invaluable  staff  to  lean  upon  in  time  of  need, 
it  is  also  something  of  a  burden  to  carry  about.  The  worst 
speller  can  gradually  train  himself  to  be  independent  of  it; 
and  if  he  aims  to  avoid  the  appearance  of  illiteracy,  he  will 
have  no  peace  of  mind  until  he  has  done  so. 

Correct  spelling  depends  fundamentally  upon  accuracy  of 
observation.  If,  when  you  first  see  a  word,  you  look  at  it 
carefully  enough  and  long  enough  to  get  its  entire  formation 
into  your  mind,  the  chances  are  great  that  you  will  never 
misspell  it.  But  if  you  get  a  half-impression,  and  begin  to 
form  the  habit  of  misspelling  a  word,  you  will  have  difficulty 
with  that  word  for  some  time.  Such  words  as  practice  (noun), 
practise  (verb),  weird,  ecstasy,  acquiescence,  conscience,  may 
have  to  be  looked  up  scores  of  times  in  the  dictionary  if  you 
have  allowed  yourself  to  begin  wrong  with  them. 

But,  you  may  say,  I  have  already  begun  wrong  with  a  long 
list  of  words;  my  problem  now  is  how  to  get  them  right,  and 
how  to  avoid  similar  mistakes  with  new  words  in  the  future. 
It  is  too  late  to  take  spelling  over  again.  What  is  the  short 
cut  to  improvement? 

Improvement  may  be  made  to  begin  at  once  by  following 
a  very  simple  plan.  Buy  an  indexed  pocket  notebook,  and 
enter  in  it  from  day  to  day  words  that  you  find  yourself 
habitually  misspelling.  Study  Appendix  IV,  section  by  sec- 
tion, and  copy  from  it  into  your  notebook  words  that  seem 
to  resist  mastery.  Copy  only  a  few  at  a  time. 

From  this  notebook  choose  a  word  at  a  time,  and  by  a 
deliberate  act  of  attention,  look  at  it  as  if  you  had  never  seen 
it  before;  if  practicable,  spell  it  aloud — slowly,  so  that  you 
have  time  to  realize  the  presence  of  each  letter.  Then  write 


42  THE  WRITING  OF  ENGLISH 

it  correctly  again  and  again;  cover  a  page  with  it,  writing 
without  a  pause;  if  you  can,  spell  it  aloud  as  you  write. 
Underline,  as  you  write,  the  part  of  the  word  in  which  your 
error  occurs.  Repeat  this  process  for  five  minutes  at  a  time, 
if  necessary  every  day  for  a  week,  or  until  you  know  that 
you  can  never  misspell  this  word  again.  Take,  for  example, 
the  much-abused  word  separate.  Look  at  a  line  of  it  with  the 
a  emphasized :  separate — separate — separate — separate — sep- 
arate— separate.  Do  you  need  to  see  it  many  more  times,  or 
to  write  it  many  times,  before  you  realize  that  the  letter  be- 
tween p  and  r  is  an  a?  Yet  this  is  one  of  the  words  most  fre- 
quently misspelled. 

Practically,  you  will  find  that  in  very  many  cases  you  will 
not  need  to  use  the  drastic  measures  outlined  above,  more 
than  once  or  twice.  If  you  think  you  have  learned  a  word, 
and  later  find  yourself  misspelling  it,  you  have  only  to  repeat 
the  process  as  if  you  had  never  performed  it  before. 

As  soon  as  you  have  learned  a  word,  cross  it  off  your  list. 
Keep  adding  to  and  taking  away  from  your  notebook;  keep 
the  words  moving,  if  you  would  make  any  real  progress. 
Write  your  words  in  odd  moments  of  waiting  on  the  train  or 
car,  at  the  station,  during  the  few  moments  before  class  or 
before  meals.  If  you  feel  that  this  is  hard  to  do,  remember 
that  the  alternative  is  lifelong  exposure  to  the  unjust  sus- 
picion of  illiteracy. 

But  suppose  you  habitually  misspell  words  without  know- 
ing that  they  are  wrong?  Suppose  you  have  literally  no 
standard  by  which  to  judge  correctness?  Then,  obviously, 
you  must  get  one.  However  eccentric  the  spelling  of  English 
words  may  seem  at  times,  it  is  actually  based  upon  rules 
which,  together  with  their  exceptions,  can  be  learned.  In 
Appendix  IV  you  will  find  these  rules  for  the  formation  of 
words,  together  with  examples  of  both  rules  and  exceptions. 
You  will  find  also  classified  groups  of  words  which  are  often 
confused  with  other  similar  words.  By  memorizing  and  prac- 


GOOD  FORM  43 

tising  these,  a  few  at  a  time,  there  is  no  reason  why  you  should 
not  eliminate  every  kind  of  fault  in  the  course  of  the  work  in 
freshman  English.  The  focusing  of  attention  sharply  upon . 
a  single  word  at  a  time,  and  the  persistent  effort  to  form  a 
correct  habit  in  regard  to  that  word,  and  the  continual  pro- 
gression from  one  word  to  another  in  the  indexed  notebook, 
however  slow  the  process  may  be,  cannot  fail  to  lead  to  the 
mastery  of  spelling. 

It  is  probable  that  you  have  some  trouble  with  punctua- 
tion. You  may  not  belong  to  the  class  of  people  who  habit- 
ually forget  to  put  a  period  at  the  end  of  a  statement,  or  to 
supply  the  second  pair  of  quotation  marks  at  the  end  of  a 
quotation;  and  still  you  may  not  realize  that  the  semicolon 
is  a  useful  compromise  between  the  comma  and  the  period, 
or  that  the  fate  of  a  nation  may  hang  upon  the  insertion  or 
omission  of  a  comma.  Do  you,  for  instance,  immediately  see 
which  of  the  following  notices  for  the  Bulletin  Board  would 
be  most  certainly  for  your  advantage? 

ALL  FRESHMEN,  WHO  HAVE  DONE  UNUSUALLY  GOOD  WORK 
IN  ENGLISH  THIS  TERM,  ARE  EXCUSED  FROM  EXAMINATION. 

ALL  FRESHMEN  WHO  HAVE  DONE  UNUSUALLY  GOOD  WORK 
IN  ENGLISH  THIS  TERM  ARE  EXCUSED  FROM  EXAMINATION. 

Punctuation,  in  general,  is  a  printer's  device  for  grouping 
thoughts  that  belong  together  and  separating  them  from 
other  thoughts.  The  division  of  a  book  into  parts,  chapters, 
sections,'  and  paragraphs  is  as  much  punctuation  as  the  use 
of  certain  marks  to  show  the  end  of  the  sentence,  whereas 
the  division  into  pages  is  purely  mechanical.  Punctuation 
marks  correspond  to  the  manipulation  of  the  breath  and  voice 
in  speech.  You  are  never  in  doubt  as  to  when  a  spoken  sen- 
tence is  interrogatory;  but  a  written  sentence  may  be  so 
phrased  that  only  the  question  mark  at  the  end  shows  how 


44  THE  WRITING  OF  ENGLISH 

it  is  to  be  taken.  When  the  mark  is  omitted,  the  reader  has 
no  guide. 

Punctuation  marks  are  of  two  kinds:  variable  and  inva- 
riable. Errors  in  invariable  punctuation  are  due  to  mere 
carelessness,  and  are — if  they  are  habitual — inexcusable. 

The  marks  used  for  invariable  punctuation  may  be  summed 
up  as  follows : 

1.  Some  mark  to  show  the  end  of  every  sentence; 

2.  A  period  after  every  non-exclamatory  assertion; 

3.  A  question  mark  after  every  direct  question; 

4.  Some  device  to  show  quotation;  in  writing,  usually 
quotation  marks; 

5.  The  setting  apart  of  elements  which  are  structurally 
independent,  or  which  modify  the  sentence  as  a  whole — such 
as  vocatives,  appositives,  nominative  absolutes,  and  certain 
adverbs  and  transitional  phrases — by  the  use  of  the  comma, 
and  of  exclamatory  words  and  phrases  by  the  comma  or 
exclamation  mark; 

6.  Brackets  to  enclose  all  matter  foreign  to  the  text  as  it 
was  originally  written,  or  merely  conjectured  to  be  a  part 
of  it. 

If  you  fail  in  the  habitual  use  of  these  invariable  marks,  you 
should  study  and  apply  the  principles  given  in  Appendix  VI 
until  you  have  no  further  difficulty  in  this  respect. 

Variable  punctuation  depends  partly  upon  meaning,  and 
partly  upon  the  emphasis  desired.  This  we  shall  study  in 
connection  with  sentence  structure.  Only  in  this  way  can 
you  learn  how  to  make  commas,  semicolons,  and  colons, 
serve  your  thought.  And  without  their  aid  you  can  never 
learn  the  secrets  of  exact  and  effective  writing. 

Finally,  in  speaking  of  form,  there  remains  to  be  considered 
grammar.  Now  grammar  may  be  viewed  under  two  aspects. 
It  is  a  theoretical  system  according  to  which  the  eight  classes 
of  words  called  parts  of  speech  are  subject  to  certain  changes 
in  form  or  in  position  within  the  sentence,  by  virtue  of  which 


GOOD  FORM  45 

they  control  the  meaning  of  the  sentence.  In  its  second  as- 
pect, grammar  is  practical.  It  is  the  formulation  of  the 
usage  of  the  majority  of  educated  people  who  are  speaking 
the  language  at  any  given  time. 

The  theory  of  grammar  in  any  language  changes  almost 
imperceptibly;  usage  changes  perceptibly  in  the  course  of  a 
generation.  Without  perpetual  reference  to  the  idiom  of 
living  speech,  grammar  tends  to  become  a  dead  letter;  with- 
out frequent  standardization  on  the  basis  of  grammar,  living 
speech  tends  to  degenerate  into  dialects  and  slang. 

You  may  or  may  not  have  had  the  sad  experience  of 
studying  grammar  as  a  kind  of  pure  mathematics  of  speech, 
quite  unrelated  to  your  usual  manner  of  expressing  yourself. 
It  is  so  taught  in  some  schools.  However  that  may  have  been, 
there  is  danger  in  our  country  that  grammar  will  be  relegated 
to  the  dusty  shelves  of  pedants,  and  daily  speech  run  loose 
with  the  bit  in  its  mouth.  No  one  who  reads  current  Amer- 
ican literature  can  be  long  unaware  of  the  large  amount  of 
bad  English  that  it  contains — English  not  merely  informal, 
not  merely  colloquial,  not  merely  slangy — some  slang  in 
its  place  is  admirable — but  English  that  cannot  on  any  prin- 
ciple be  justified  as  beautiful  or  fitting.  Exactly  the  same 
criticism  can  be  made  of  the  speech  of  most  of  our  people — 
even  that  of  college  graduates,  doctors  of  philosophy,  pro- 
fessors, high  officials.  The  American  man  or  woman  who 
speaks  ninety  per  cent  correct  English  is  difficult  to  find. 
"Between  you  and  I"  has  been  heard  from  the  platform, 
addressed  to  an  audience  of  four  thousand  people;  a  super- 
intendent of  education,  in  a  pamphlet  on  English,  defended 
the  use  of  "He  don't!" 

Undoubtedly  one  cause  of  this  national  illiteracy — to  put 
the  matter  strongly — in  regard  to  the  use  of  English,  lies  in 
the  separation  of  the  study  of  grammar  from  the  study  of 
idiom.  And  the  remedy  lies  with  the  college  student.  How 
shall  he  begin? 


46  THE  WRITING  OF  ENGLISH 

He  must  realize  in  the  first  place,  that  he  does  express 
himself  incorrectly;  and  in  the  second  place,  that  in  an  under- 
standing of  grammar  lies  his  help.  He  must  regard  grammar, 
not  as  a  source  of  infinite  boredom  and  low  marks,  but  as  a 
subject  capable  of  being  brought  to  life  and  made  to  stim- 
ulate his  thinking  processes.  And  the  one  way  to  bring 
grammar  to  life  is  to  put  aside  formal  definitions,  elaborate 
classifications,  examples  made  to  order,  and  to  observe  how, 
as  the  machinery  of  the  language,  it  really  works.  This  can 
be  done  by  analyzing  step  by  step  the  construction  of  the 
sentence,  and  the  changes  of  meaning  and  emphasis  involved 
in  changes  of  arrangement  and  punctuation. 

The  cautions  which  some  writers  of  textbooks  and  teachers 
have  given  about  words  and  constructions  have  not  always 
made  clear  to  students  the  truth  in  regard  to  questions  of 
usage;  in  fact,  these  cautions  have  sometimes  been  made  so 
absolute  as  to  be  really  misleading.  Let  us  try  to  get  some 
simple  and  clear  ideas  on  the  subject. 

In  the  first  place,  a  language  is  just  what  the  people  who 
speak  it  and  write  it  make  it.  The  spelling  of  a  word,  its 
pronunciation,  its  meaning,  its  social  standing,  are  not  due 
to  any  substance  or  quality  in  the  word  itself  that  determines 
these  features;  they  are  due  to  the  way  in  which  the  word  has 
been  spelled  and  pronounced  and  used  in  the  past,  including 
in  the  term  "past"  all  the  time  from  the  origin  of  the  word 
down  to  the  present  moment.  For  example,  the  word  fee 
was  once  spelled  feoh,  it  was  pronounced  like  no  word  now 
in  existence,  and  it  meant  a  cow  or,  collectively,  cattle;  later 
it  was  spelled  fee,  pronounced  almost  like  the  modern 
word  fay  and  it  meant  property  in  general  or,  specifically, 
money;  later,  from  the  meaning  property  developed  a  special 
meaning  in  connection  with  the  holding  of  real-estate,  in 
fee  simple  being  the  term  for  absolute  possession  of  a  piece 
of  land;  at  the  same  time,  from  the  meaning  money  developed 
the  usual  present  meaning  of  a  payment  for  services;  and  the 


GOOD  FORM  47 

word  in  both  of  its  later  meanings  has  acquired  the  pronuncia- 
tion that  we  now  give  it.  It  would  obviously  be  absurd 
to-day  to  spell  the  word  as  it  used  to  be  spelled  or  to 
give  it  its  ancient  pronunciation  or  any  of  its  ancient  mean- 
ings, not  because  these  were  not  correct — for  they  were — 
but  merely  because  these  are  not  the  usage  or  custom  of 
the  present  day.  It  would  be  equally  absurd,  although  to 
hold  in  fee  is  still  used  hi  legal  documents  with  the  meaning 
to  own,  to  possess,  for  any  speaker  or  writer  to  try  to  make 
this  use  of  the  word  a  part  of  his  ordinary  speech;  it  belongs 
to  the  technical  language  of  the  law  courts  and  would  be 
out  of  place  in  the  language  of  daily  life. 

The  forms  and  meanings  and  associations  of  words  in  the 
past,  then,  have  led  up  to  their  forms  and  meanings  and 
associations  at  the  present  time;  but  since  we  live  in  the 
present  and  use  present-day  English,  the  question  of  word 
usage  is  simply  a  question  of  what  actually  are  the  spelling, 
pronunciation,  meaning,  and  associations  of  words  at  the 
present  time. 

This  does  not  mean  that  every  form  that  exists  is  correct 
and  every  usage  is  to  be  imitated.  Some  persons  are  ignorant, 
still  more  are  careless.  And  besides  that,  some  forms  and 
meanings  are  permissible  under  some  circumstances  that 
would  be  absurd  under  others.  Take  the  word  alibi.  It 
has  a  perfectly  definite  correct  meaning,  which  is  "proof  that 
a  person  accused  of  a  crime  was  somewhere  else  [Lathi  alibi] 
when  the  crime  was  committed."  Many  people — some  ig- 
norant and  others  careless — are  now  using  it  to  mean  "any 
sort  of  good  excuse  for  any  sort  of  failure."  Does  the  usage 
of  these  ignorant  and  careless  persons  justify  you  in  helping 
to  spoil  a  good  and  useful  word?  Surely  not.  The  clerk  who 
sells  you  fresh  vegetables  probably — nay,  certainly — applies 
the  term  grass  to  what  you  call  asparagus.  Does  the 
uniform  usage  of  the  whole  world  of  vegetable  dealers  justify 
you  in  adopting  grass  as  good  English  for  asparagus? 


48  THE  WRITING  OF  ENGLISH 

What  has  just  been  said  about  words  applies  with  equal 
force  to  constructions.  Some  are  antiquated,  some  are  over- 
elegant  for  daily  use,  some  are  slangy,  some  are  useful  but 
undignified,  some  are  good  for  any  and  all  occasions.  To  use 
slang  or  undignified  colloquialisms  on  an  occasion  calling  for 
seriousness  and  dignity  is  like  wearing  a  pair  of  overalls  at  a 
formal  dinner;  to  use  superfine  poetic  terms  in  buying  a 
railway  ticket  or  ordering  the  family  groceries  is  like  wearing 
evening  dress  at  a  baseball  game. 

To  sum  up  the  whole  matter  briefly,  it  is  important  for 
success  in  writing  or  speaking  to  know  what  are  the  proper 
words  and  fit  constructions  for  the  different  kinds  of  writing 
and  speaking  that  one  is  called  on  to  do.  The  realistic  novel- 
ist and  the  feature  story  writers  for  newspapers  and  magazines 
will  wish  to  know  all  varieties  of  speech — slangy,  vulgar, 
colloquial,  business-like,  super-elegant,  pedantic,  or  what 
not — for  they  have  occasion  in  their  work  to  represent  all 
sorts  and  conditions  of  men  as  speaking  in  the  manner  in 
which  each  speaks  in  actual  life.  The  writer  or  speaker  who 
intends  to  cultivate  a  special  field  or  a  special  audience  will 
study  the  vocabulary  and  forms  of  language  appropriate  to 
his  purpose.  There  are  perhaps  no  words  or  constructions  in 
current  use  that  a  writer  might  not  wish  to  make  use  of  for 
some  special  purpose  or  occasion.  The  art  of  good  writing 
lies  in  employing  for  each  purpose  and  occasion  the  right 
words  in  their  right  uses  and  places.  For  the  student,  the 
first  requisite  is  to  study  the  usage  of  persons  whose  taste  and 
judgment  and  means  of  knowing  what  is  proper  can  be  de- 
pended upon. 

Books  on  usage — if  written  by  competent  persons — merely 
undertake  to  find  out  what  is  the  uniform  usage  of  cultivated 
men  and  women,  what  variations,  if  any,  exist  and  to  make 
this  information  available  for  those  of  us  who  are  unable  to 
learn  such  matters  by  personal  observation.  The  most  gen- 
erally useful  of  such  books  is,  as  has  been  said  in  a  previous 


GOOD  FORM  49 

chapter,  the  dictionary.  It  does  not  undertake  to  lay  down 
laws  which  must  be  observed,  but  only  to  report  in  regard  to 
each  word  how  it  actually  is  spelled,  pronounced,  and  used 
by  most  persons  whose  usage  is  worth  considering;  and  fur- 
ther to  record  in  regard  to  words  that  are  out-of-date,  or 
poetic,  or  colloquial,  or  slangy,  or  vulgar,  or  used  only  in  cer- 
tain districts  the  fact  that  they  are  of  such  a  character. 
Careful  study  of  the  dictionary,  supplemented  occasionally 
by  some  more  detailed  discussion  of  puzzling  problems, 
will  soon  repay  the  student  for  his  labor. 

You  will  find  in  Appendix  VIII,  a  list  of  idioms  which 
may  help  you  with  special  difficulties. 

ASSIGNMENT 

Examine  the  eight  sections  of  the  Appendix  and  observe  where 
you  will  find  directions  and  exercises  that  will  help  you  to  overcome 
your  individual  defects  in  matters  of  form. 

Discuss  in  class  the  best  ways  of  making  use  of  this  part  of  the 
book. 


PART  II 

TECHNIQUE 


CHAPTER  VI 
THE  SENTENCE 

1.  PREDICATION 

GOOD  sentences  are  the  foundation  stones  of  all  good  writ- 
ing. But  when  is  a  sentence  good?  What  is  a  sentence? 

The  function  of  the  sentence  is  to  express  thought;  and 
thought  is  the  process  in  which  the  mind  seizes  upon  an  image 
or  an  idea  and  moves  with  it  toward  the  goal  of  another  idea. 
As  a  baby  you  began  to  think: 

Papa  (image) is  coming  (goal). 

Kitty  (image) is  soft  (goal). 

In  other  words,  thought  is  the  process  of  organizing  mental 
impressions  into  relationships.  In  its  simplest  form,  a 
thought  involves  two  ideas:  a  subject  with  which  it  begins, 
and  a  predicate  with  which  it  ends.  In  this  movement  of  the 
mind  from  subject  through  predicate  thought  lives;  and  like 
life  itself,  as  soon  as  it  ceases  to  be  dynamic,  it  ceases  to  exist. 

The  sentence,  then,  represents  in  words  this  thought- 
movement — this  passing  over  of  thought  from  a  subject  to  a 
predicate,  which  is  sometimes  called  predication. 

The  subject  of  the  sentence  always  stands  for  a  mental 
image  or  idea;  it  is  always  a  substantive — a  noun,  or  its 
representative. 

Used  alone,  the  substantive  is  static — involves  no  thought 
whatever,  but  an  image  more  or  less  definite :  cat ;  sky;  who;  he. 
But  the  moment  that  a  predicate  is  attached,  we  have  the 
movement  of  thought:  The  cat  mewed;  The  sky  is  blue; 
Who  came?  He  did. 

The  predicate  always  embodies  the  thought-movement  it- 
53 


54  THE  WRITING  OF  ENGLISH 

self  as  it  proceeds  away  from  the  subject  toward  a  further 
idea;  it  is  always  a  verb,  which  may  or  may  not  require  for 
the  complete  expression  of  the  idea  further  appendages,  called 
object  (direct  and  indirect),  predicate  complement,  and  ad- 
verbial substantive.  Without  the  verb  there  can  be  no 
predicate;  but  the  verb  alone  may  be  all  that  is  needed  for 
the  predicate. 

Yet  the  verb  can  no  more  stand  alone  to  express  thought 
than  can  the  subject:  go;  is;  has  seen.  There  can  be  no  move- 
ment without  a  starting-point.  But  the  moment  a  substan- 
tive is  added  or  clearly  understood,  a  sentence  is  formed: 
{You)  go;  God  is;  She  has  seen. 

The  predicate  verb  is  complex  in  its  function.  In  the  first 
place,  it  may  be  either  dynamic  or  static;  that  is,  it  may  ex- 
press action  or  merely  state  equivalence. 

When  it  is  dynamic,  it  contains  in  itself  the  idea  of  the 
thought-movement  that  has  its  starting-point  in  the  sub- 
ject, and  it  may  contain  within  itself  the  goal  of  this  move- 
ment: 

I am  writing. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  thought-movement  may  pass  beyond 
the  verb  and  find  complete  expression  only  when  it  has  made 
a  direct  object  its  goal: 

I am  writing a  letter. 

This  passing-over  of  the  thought  beyond  the  verb  to  a  direct 
object  is  shown  by  the  word  transitive  (going-over) ,  applied  to 
the  verb  that  is  accompanied  by  this  appendage.  When  the 
verb  contains  in  itself  a  complete  idea  of  action,  it  is  called 
intransitive  (not  going  over). 

There  is  no  fixed  classification  of  verbs  on  this  basis.  In 
many  cases,  the  same  verb  may  be  used  transitively  and  in- 
transitively: 

I  walk I  walk  my  horses. 

Baby  grows I  grow  geraniums. 


THE  SENTENCE  55 

It  is  necessary,  then,  whenever  a  verb  of  action  is  used,  to  look 
to  see  whether  the  thought-movement  passes  beyond  the  verb 
and  is  completed  by  a  direct  object;  that  is,  whether  the  verb 
is  transitive  or  intransitive. 

The  static  verb,  which  is  always  the  copula  (the  verb  to  be], 
or  some  verb  that  denotes  an  impression  made  upon  the  mind 
(as,  to  seem,  appear,  feel,  taste,  sound,  look,  smell,  etc.),  does 
not  contain  in  itself  the  idea  of  the  thought-movement,  but 
merely  serves  to  link  the  starting-point  of  the  thought  (sub- 
ject) with  the  goal,  which  is  now  called  the  predicate  com- 
plement. Here  the  thought  passes  over  from  the  subject  to 
the  predicate  complement;  but  the  verb  is  essential  to  hold 
the  two  ideas  together. 

The  predicate  complement  may  be  a  noun,  a  pronoun,  or 
an  adjective: 

Who  is  he?    He  is  American.    He  is  an  American. 

A  sentence,  then,  consists  of  two  essential  elements:  sub- 
ject and  predicate.  Both  must  be  expressed,  or  if  one  is 
omitted,  it  must  be  so  definitely  implied  that  it  can  be  imme- 
diately and  exactly  stated.  . 

"Shall  you  walk?" 

"No  [I  shall  not  walk],  [I  shall]  drive." 

A  sentence  with  such  omissions  is  called  elliptical. 

The  life  of  the  sentence  depends  upon  the  presence — or 
unmistakable  implication — in  the  predicate  of  some  finite 
form  of  the  verb  (that  is,  a  form  in  the  indicative  or  the  sub- 
junctive mood;  not  an  infinitive  or  a  participle),  which 
asserts  action,  state,  or  being. 

The  following  groups  of  words  are  not  sentences: 

The  wood  on  the  hill  now  almost  bare  (no  verb). 
To  return  to  the  point  (infinitive  phrase  used  as  verb). 
The  day  being  warm  and  oppressive  (participle  used  as  verb). 
Which  he  said  he  would  do  (subordinate  clause  used  independ- 
ently). 


56  THE  WRITING  OF  ENGLISH 

The  following  diagram  may  help  you  to  remember  the 
essential  condition  that  the  thought  must  move  from  one 
idea  to  another: 

PREDICATION 

Starting-point  _____ '  - Goal 

Subject Predicate 

Subject Intransitive  verb 

Subject Transitive  verb ....  direct  object 

Subject copula  (copulative  verb).  . .  .Predicate  complement 

This,  of  course,  is  the  bare  skeleton  of  the  simplest  type  of 
sentence  structure — the  simple  sentence.  For  the  full  ex- 
pression of  the  idea  we  may  need  modifiers  of  the  subject 
(adjective  elements),  and  modifiers  of  the  predicate  (adverbial 
elements),  and  modifiers  of  the  sentence  as  a  whole  (independ- 
ent elements) ;  but  all  these  are  superstructure,  and  found  in 
varying  degrees.  They  may  be  added  or  removed  to  alter 
the  meaning  of  the  sentence;  but  their  presence  or  absence 
does  not  affect  its  life. 

The  simple  sentence  may  be  built  up  by  parallelism  into 
the  compound  sentence;  but  each  clause  of  this  compound 
structure  must  conform  to  the  requirements  of  the  simple 
sentence. 

One  simple  sentence  may  be  subordinated  to  another  to 
construct  a  complex  sentence;  but  principal  and  subordinate 
clause  alike  must  contain  predications. 

However  much  a  sentence  may  vary  in  form — as  in  state- 
ment, question,  or  exclamation, — it  must  be  built  upon  this 
one  structural  principle. 

ASSIGNMENT 

1.  Analyze  each  sentence  on  p.  58  into  its  starting-point  and 
goal.  Group  the  modifiers  of  the  subject  with  it,  and  keep  all  the 
parts  of  the  predicate  together.  Continue  the  exercise  until  you 


THE  SENTENCE  57 

have  no  difficulty  in  distinguishing  the  two  essential  features  of 
the  sentence. 

2.  Beginning  where  you  left  off  in  the  preceding  exercise,  name 
the  verbs,  and  distinguish  between  intransitive  verbs  and  transi- 
tive verbs  with  direct  objects.     Wherever  you  can,  give  examples 
of  the  transitive  use  of  verbs  that  you  find  intransitive,  and  vice 
versa.  ! 

3.  Continue   the   sentence   analysis,   naming   the   copulas   and 
copulative  verbs,  and  the  predicate  complements  attached  to  them. 

4.  Write  in  100  words  or  less  a  summary  of  the  structure  of  the 
sentence.    Avoid  as  far  as  possible  the  phrasing  used  in  this  section. 

5.  Illustrate,  if  you  can,  the  error  of  making  groups  of  words 
that  do  not  contain  a  predication  stand  for  sentences. 

6.  Find  and  copy  a  dialogue  of  six  or  more  elliptical  sentences, 
supplying  in  brackets  what  is  understood  to  make  the  sense  com- 
plete. 

2.  ORGANIZATION 

How  shall  you  know  where  to  end  one  sentence  and  begin 
another?  As  a  child,  you  probably  talked  like  this: 

We  went  to  the  zoo  and  we  saw  the  elephant  and  he  was  eating 
his  dinner 

and  so  on  until  your  breath  gave  out. 

But  sentence  unity  is  not  a  matter  of  breath,  but  of  or- 
ganization of  thought.  Observation  and  reflection  show  us 
that  all  things  about  us  are  more  or  less  related.  The  thought 
process  is  continually  discovering  new  relationships,  and  con- 
tinually emphasizing,  for  the  purpose  of  the  moment,  some 
relationships  and  ignoring  others.  In  constructing  every 
sentence  we  have  an  idea,  in  accordance  with  which  we 
choose  such  material  as  we  need,  and  organize  it  by  establish- 
ing proper  relationships  between  the  words  that  contain  this 
thought.  Sentence  unity  is  not  simplicity,  but  organized 
complexity.  Each  sentence  in  a  passage  should  combine  a 
group  of  ideas  more  closely  related  to  one  another,  in  view  of 
the  purpose,  than  to  any  others  expressed  in  the  same  connec- 
tion. It  should  be  possible  to  omit  elements  in  a  sentence,  or 


58  THE  WRITING  OF  ENGLISH 

to  add  elements,  according  to  the  amount  of  detail  desired; 
but  it  should  never  be  possible  to  say :  This  phrase  belongs  in 
the  sentence  before,  or  in  the  sentence  after;  or,  This  element 
has  nothing  to  do  with  the  predication  or  any  part  of  it. 

To  write  unified  sentences,  you  must  first  learn  to  answer 
the  questions:  What  ideas  am  I  trying  to  combine  here? 
Have  I  so  welded  them  that,  however  numerous  and  complex, 
they  make  a  single  impression,  which  can  be  summed  up  in  a 
topic,  or  as  a  single  predication? 

Let  us  see  how  this  principle  works  out  in  the  writing  of 
an  expert.  Read  the  following  paragraph,  sentence  by  sen- 
tence, and  note  whether  each  sentence  can  be  summed  up 
according  to  the  list  of  predications  given  below: 

1.  Under  the  shade  of  a  lonely  tree  in  the  courtyard,  the  villagers 
connected  with  the  assault  case  sat  in  a  picturesque  group,  looking 
like  a  chromo-lithograph  of  a  camp  in  a  book  of  Eastern  travel. 
2.  One  missed  the  obligatory  thread  of  smoke  in  the  foreground  and 
the  pack-animals  grazing.  3.  A  blank  yellow  wall  rose  behind,  over- 
topping the  tree,  reflecting  the  glare.  4.  The  courtroom  was  somber, 
seemed  more  vast.  5.  High  up  in  the  dim  space  the  punkahs  were 
swaying  to  and  fro,  to  and  fro.  6.  Here  and  there  a  draped 
figure,  dwarfed  by  the  bare  walls,  remained  without  stirring  amongst 
the  rows  of  empty  benches,  as  if  absorbed  in  pious  meditation. 
7.  The  plaintiff,  who  had  been  beaten,  an  obese  chocolate-colored 
man  with  shaved  head,  one  fat  breast  bare,  and  bright  yellow  caste- 
mark  above  the  bridge  of  his  nose,  sat  in  pompous  immobility: 
only  his  eyes  glittered,  rolling  in  the  gloom,  and  the  nostrils  dilated 
and  collapsed  violently  as  he  breathed.  8.  Brierly  dropped  into 
his  seat  looking  done  up,  as  though  he  had  spent  the  night  in  sprint- 
ing on  a  cinder-track.  9.  The  pious  sailing-ship  skipper  appeared 
excited  and  made  uneasy  movements,  as  if  restraining  with  diffi- 
culty an  impulse  to  stand  up  and  exhort  us  earnestly  to  prayer  and 
repentance.  10.  The  head  of  the  magistrate,  delicately  pale  under 
the  neatly  arranged  hair,  resembled  the  head  of  a  hopeless  invalid 
after  he  had  been  washed  and  brushed  and  propped  up  in  bed. 
11.  He  moved  aside  the  vase  of  flowers — a  bunch  of  purple  with  a 
few  pink  blossoms  on  long  stalks — and  seizing  in  both  hands  a  long 
sheet  of  bluish  paper,  ran  his  eye  over  it,  propped  his  forearms  on 


THE  SENTENCE  59 

the  edge  of  the  desk,  and  began  to  read  aloud  in  an  even,  distinct, 
and  careless  voice. — Joseph  Conrad. 

1.  The  villagers how  they  looked 

2.  What  details were  missing 

3.  The  wall how  it  looked 

4.  The  courtroom how  it  looked 

5.  The  punkahs where  and  how  they  were  swaying 

6.  Visitors how  they  looked 

7.  The  plaintiff how  he  looked 

8.  Brierly how  he  looked 

9.  The  sailing-ship  skipper ....  how  he  looked 

10.  The  magistrate how  he  looked 

11.  The  magistrate how  he  opened  the  trial 

In  this  paragraph  the  sentences  range  in  length  from  seven 
words  to  fifty-six.  What  determines  the  stopping-place  of 
each?  Let  us  try  to  combine  them  differently: 

No.  1.  If  you  stop  at  group,  you  break  the  close  connection 
of  ideas  between  picturesque  and  chromo-lithograph.  The 
phrase  that  begins  with  looking  is  the  specific  interpretation 
of  the  word  picturesque;  hence  it  is  absolutely  needed  to 
make  the  picture,  and  belongs  in  this  sentence  and  no  other. 

No.  2.  If  you  try  to  see  at  the  same  moment  the  things 
that  are  in  a  picture  and  those  that  are  not,  what  is  the  re- 
sult? After  you  have  the  main  outlines  of  the  villagers,  the 
author  warns  you  against  putting  in  what  is  not  there.  To 
keep  from  blurring  the  picture,  he  makes  a  fresh  sentence. 

No.  3.  This  cannot  be  combined  with  2  because  it  goes  back 
to  the  picture  in  No.  1. 

No.  4.  If  4  is  combined  with  3,  you  must  instantaneously 
shift  your  point  of  view  from  the  courtyard  to  the  court- 
room; and  neither  scene  stands  out  as  vividly  as  if  you  gave 
it  a  special  effort  of  attention.  Moreover,  3  is  the  background 
for  the  picture  of  the  group  of  villagers. 

No.  5.  This  might  have  been  combined  with  4;  but  stand- 
ing alone,  it  gives  you  time  to  see  the  room  as  a  whole  before 
your  attention  is  called  to  any  detail. 


60  THE  WRITING  OF  ENGLISH 

No.  6.  This  could  not  well  have  been  combined  with  5 
because  it  shifts  the  view  from  the  walls  of  the  room  to  the 
benches;  nor  with  7  because  it  is  the  general  background 
against  which  the  figure  described  in  7  is  to  be  placed. 

Nos.  7,  8,  9.  Each  of  these  sentences  gives  all  the  details 
about  a  single  person  in  the  room.  Obviously  any  combina- 
tion of  them  would  blur  each  little  picture;  and  any  breaking 
up  of  any  of  them  would  require  you  to  piece  it  together. 

Nos.  10,  11.  No.  10  makes  a  sketch  of  the  magistrate  sim- 
ilar to  the  preceding  pictures;  and  No.  11  is  a  moving  picture 
of  how  he  opened  the  trial.  If  10  and  11  are  combined,  you 
will  not  see  him  clearly  before  he  begins  to  move. 

If  you  will  try  out  the  changes  suggested  above,  you  will 
see  that  while  grammatically  it  would  be  possible  to  reduce 
the  number  of  sentences  to  six  or  seven,  or  to  increase  it  to 
nearly  twenty,  from  the  point  of  view  of  the  subject  the 
present  number  is  exactly  right. 

We  may  sum  up  the  problem  of  sentence  content,  then,  by 
saying  that  each  sentence  must  be  so  constructed  as  to  have 
unity;  and  further,  that  unity  is  not  a  matter  of  brevity  as 
opposed  to  length,  or  of  simplicity  as  opposed  to  complexity, 
but  of  the  welding  of  ideas  on  the  basis  of  associations  in  the 
writer's  thought.  It  is  the  writer's  business  to  see  that  these 
associations  are  at  once  apparent  to  his  readers. 

As  long  as  this  association  is  sufficient  to  unify,  there  is 
theoretically  no  limit  to  the  length  of  a  sentence.  Good 
sentences  have  been  written  containing  five  hundred  words. 
Practically,  however,  three  other  considerations  determine 
sentence  length.  One  is  the  gradation  of  emphasis  desired. 
If  No.  11  in  the  Conrad  passage  had  been  expressed  as  three 
short  sentences,  the  effect  would  have  been  to  throw  dis- 
proportionate stress  on  each  movement  of  the  magistrate, 
thus: 

He  moved  aside  the  vase  of  flowers — a  bunch  of  purple  with  a 
few  pink  blossoms  on  long  stalks.  Seizing  in  both  hands  a  long 


THE  SENTENCE  61 

sheet  of  bluish  paper,  he  ran  his  eye  over  it.  Then  he  propped  his 
forearms  on  the  edge  of  the  desk,  and  began  to  read  aloud  in  an 
even,  distinct,  and  careless  voice. 

Such  a  change  would  be  desirable  if  the  plot  in  some  way 
hinged  upon  each  of  these  movements;  but  as  they  are  merely 
background,  they  should  be  merged  in  one  sentence. 

A  second  determinant  is  the  desirability  of  breaking  the 
strain  upon  the  reader's  attention  at  reasonable  intervals. 
The  pause  between  sentences,  however  short,  is  actually  a 
moment  of  rest;  and  whenever  a  subject  tends  naturally  to 
produce  long  sentences,  it  is  well  to  make  a  deliberate  effort 
to  introduce  short  sentences  for  the  relief  that  they  give.  If 
pages  of  unrelieved  long  sentences  are  fatiguing,  not  less  so 
are  pages  of  unrelieved  short  sentences,  but  for  a  very  dif- 
ferent reason:  the  attention  wearies  of  being  jogged  by  the 
beginning  of  a  fresh  sentence  every  moment  or  two.  The 
best  writers  learn  so  to  vary  their  sentences  in  length  that 
the  reader's  attention  is  kept  alert  without  being  jerked  by 
the  bit  at  short  intervals. 

The  third  determinant  is  the  rhythm  desired  for  the  passage 
as  a  whole.  This  depends  upon  the  subject  and  purpose  in 
writing.  A  popular  article,  a  speech  intended  for  a  mixed 
audience,  a  story  for  children — these  require  a  rhythm  made 
up  of  many  short  sentences,  with  only  enough  long  sentences 
to  avoid  choppiness.  A  delicately  articulated  study  or  story 
dealing  with  a  subtle  or  a  complex  subject  would  tend  to  a 
rhythm  of  much  longer  units,  with  only  enough  short  sen- 
tences to  avoid  monotony. 

A  good  rule  for  the  student  in  regard  to  sentence  organiza- 
tion is  this:  Never  make  a  sentence  so  long  that  a  person 
reading  aloud  cannot  grasp  it  as  a  whole  as  he  goes  on,  and 
without  difficulty  give  it  the  proper  intonation  and  shading. 
From  twenty  to  thirty  words  is  a  good  average  length;  but 
sentences  considerably  shorter  and  considerably  longer  should 
be  introduced  now  and  then  as  the  subject  suggests  them,  or 


62  THE  WRITING  OF  ENGLISH 

the  effect  will  be  monotonous.  Whenever  a  sentence  runs 
much  over  thirty  words,  it  should  fall  into  two  or  more  very 
distinctly  articulated  divisions  separated  by  semicolons, 
which  give  the  reader  breathing-space  in  which  to  get  his 
bearings  before  he  goes  further.  If  you  try  to  read  aloud  the 
following  sentence  taken  from  a  standard  newspaper,  you 
will  realize  the  importance  of  this  caution: 

Under  the  statutes  male  spy  suspects  may  be  interned  in  places 
where  they  can  do  no  harm,  pending  further  investigation,  but  by 
the  unfortunate  wording  of  the  President's  proclamation,  it  would 
seem  that  no  such  preliminary  protective  measures  short  of  actual 
arrest  may  be  taken  by  the  secret  service  against  women,  who 
thus  are  enjoying,  at  this  critical  stage  of  the  war,  a  freedom  of 
movement  that  materially  handicaps  the  espionage  departments 
and  gives  to  them  a  supreme  advantage  in  the  underworld  of  spy- 
dom  at  a  time  when  information  as  to  troop  movements  and  mili- 
tary preparations  is  of  vital  concern  to  Germany. 

How  many  words  does  it  contain?  How  many  sentences 
should  have  been  made  of  it?  Reconstruct  it  into  the  proper 
number  of  sentences. 

ASSIGNMENT 

1.  Experiment  with  different  combinations  and  divisions  of 
sentences  in  the  following  extract  until  you  are  convinced  that 
each  sentence  includes  only  what  is  relevant  to  it,  and  stops  where 
it  should;  or  until  you  have  been  able  to  improve  it: 

"  There  are  times  and  moods  in  which  it  is  revealed  to  us,  or  to  a 
few  among  us,  that  we  are  a  survival  of  the  past,  a  dying  remnant 
of  a  vanished  people,  and  are  like  strangers  and  captives  among 
those  who  do  not  understand  us,  and  have  no  wish  to  do  so;  whose 
language  and  customs  and  thoughts  are  not  ours.  That  'world- 
strangeness,'  which  William  Watson  and  his  fellow-poets  prattle 
in  rhyme  about,  those,  at  all  events,  who  have  what  they  call  the 
'note  of  modernity'  in  their  pipings,  is  not  in  me  as  in  them.  The 
blue  sky,  the  brown  soil  beneath,  the  grass,  the  trees,  the  animals, 
the  wind,  and  rain,  and  sun,  and  stars  are  never  strange  to  me; 
for  I  am  in  and  of  and  am  one  with  them;  and  my  flesh  and  the  soil 
are  one,  and  the  heat  in  my  blood  and  in  the  sunshine  are  one,  and 


THE  SENTENCE  63 

the  winds  and  tempests  and  my  passions  are  one.  I  feel  the  'strange- 
ness' only  in  regard  to  my  fellow-men,  especially  in  towns,  where 
they  exist  in  conditions  unnatural  to  me,  but  congenial  to  them; 
where  they  are  seen  in  numbers  and  in  crowds,  in  streets  and  houses, 
and  in  all  places  where  they  gather  together;  when  I  look  at  them, 
their  pale  civilized  faces,  their  clothes,  and  hear  them  eagerly  talk- 
ing about  things  that  do  not  concern  me.  They  are  out  of  my 
world — the  real  world.  All  that  they  value,  and  seek  and  strain 
after  all  their  lives  long,  their  works  and  sports  and  pleasures,  are 
the  merest  baubles  and  childish  things;  and  their  ideals  are  all 
false,  and  nothing  but  by-products,  or  growths,  of  the  artificial  life — 
little  funguses  cultivated  in  heated  cellars. 

"In  such  moments  we  sometimes  feel  a  kinship  with,  and  are 
strangely  drawn  to,  the  dead,  who  were  not  as  these;  the  long, 
long  dead,  the  men  who  knew  not  life  in  towns,  and  felt  no  strange- 
ness in  sun  and  wind  and  rain.  In  such  a  mood  on  that  evening 
I  went  to  one  of  those  lonely  barrows;  one  that  rises  to  a  height 
of  nine  or  ten  feet  above  the  level  heath,  and  is  about  fifty  yards 
round.  It  is  a  garden  in  the  brown  desert,  covered  over  with  a 
dense  growth  of  furze  bushes,  still  in  flower,  mixed  with  bramble 
and  elder  and  thorn,  and  heather  in  great  clumps,  blooming,  too, 
a  month  before  its  time,  the  fiery  purple-red  of  its  massed  blossoms, 
and  of  a  few  tall,  tapering  spikes  of  foxglove,  shining  against  the 
vivid  green  of  the  young  bracken. 

"  All  this  rich,  wild  vegetation  on  that  lonely  mound  on  the  brown 
heath! 

'*  Here,  sheltered  by  the  bushes,  I  sat  and  saw  the  sun  go  down, 
and  the  long  twilight  deepen  till  the  oak  woods  of  Beaulieu  in  the 
west  looked  black  on  the  horizon,  and  the  stars  came  out:  in  spite 
of  the  cold  that  made  me  shiver  in  my  thin  clothes,  I  sat  there  for 
hours,  held  by  the  silence  and  solitariness  of  that  mound  of  the 
ancient  dead." — W.  H.  Hudson. 

2.  Copy  from  some  magazine  or  newspaper  a  paragraph  or  part 
of  a  paragraph  (not  less  than  300  words);  and  bring  it  to  class  for 
discussion  of  the  sentences  and  possible  improvements. 

3.  Collect  some  facts  as  to  sentence  length  in  current  prose.    At 
least  two  students  should  count  the  same  pages  in  order  to  verify 
results.    Count  at  least  six  pages,  two  by  each  of  three  authors  in 
some   magazine.     The   following   magazines   and   periodicals   are 
suggested:  Atlantic  Monthly,  Nation,  Outlook,  New  Republic,  Har- 
per's,   Century,    Scribner's,    Unpopular    Review,    English    Review, 
Forum,  North  American  Review. 

Do  not  use  passages  that  contain  dialogue. 


64  THE  WRITING  OF  ENGLISH 

3.  MODIFICATION 

The  movement  of  the  sentence  from  its  starting-point  to 
its  goal  is  a  continuous  process  of  modification,  in  which 
both  single  words  and  word  groups  of  various  lengths  take 
part.  This  you  will  see  at  once  if  you  read  slowly  the  follow- 
ing paragraph,  in  which  you  find  a  dash  after  each  single- word 
or  group  modifier,  and  in  which  the  subjects  and  the  pred- 
icates of  the  principal  clauses  are  in  bold-faced  type,  and  the 
connective  words  in  italics: 

On  all  this  part  of  the  coast, — and  especially  near  Aros, — these 
great — granite — rocks — that  I  have  spoken  of — go  down — together 
— in  troops — into  the  sea, — like  cattle — on  a  summer's  day. — 
There  they  stand — for  all  the  world — like  their  neighbors — ashore; — 
only  the  salt — water — sobbing — between  them — instead  of  the 
quiet — earth, — and  clots — of  sea-pink — blooming — on  their  sides — 
instead  of  heather; — and  the  great — sea-conger — to  wreathe — 
about  the  base  of  them — instead  of  the  poisonous — viper — of  the 
land. — On  calm — days — you  can  go — wandering  between  them — 
in  a  boat — for  hours, — echoes  following  you — about  the  labyrinth; — 
but  when  the  sea  is  up, — Heaven — help — the  man — that  hears  that 
cauldron  boiling. — Stevenson. 

If  now  you  read  the  paragraph  again,  this  time  ignoring 
the  pauses  marked  by  the  dashes,  you  will  see  how  gradually 
and  continuously  all  the  modifiers  merge  into  one  another 
and  blend  with  the  subject  and  predicate  to  form  in  each 
sentence  a  unified  impression.  The  thought  veers  slightly 
as  it  moves,  but  none  the  less,  like  a  good  ship,  pushes  on 
steadily  toward  the  goal  for  which  it  set  out. 

It  is  a  good  rule  to  be  sparing  in  the  use  of  modifiers — to 
use  them  only  when  the  subject  substantive  and  the  predicate 
verb  cannot  express  the  thought  as  fully  and  accurately  as 
you  wish.  Often  a  single  strong  noun  or  verb  can  be  sub- 
stituted for  a  weak  noun  plus  an  adjective,  and  a  vigorous 
verb  for  a  colorless  verb  plus  an  adverb,  and  with  decided 
gain  in  economy,  neatness,  and  force.  Compare  the  follow- 
ing pairs  of  sentences : 


THE  SENTENCE  65 

A  loud  shouting  quickly  passed  through  the  crowd, 
and 

A  hullabaloo  rocked  the  crowd. 

The  wild  country  separated  them  entirely  from  their  fellows, 
and 

Wilderness  shut  them  from  their  fellows. 

On  the  other  hand,  when  modifiers  are  necessary  they 
should  be  so  chosen  that  each  makes  a  definite  contribution  to 
the  idea,  which  could  not  be  spared  without  great  loss  in 
effectiveness.  In  describing  unfamiliar  things,  it  is  especially 
important  to  use  specific,  accurate,  concrete,  and  suggestive 
words.  Note  the  extraordinary  skill  with  which  nouns  are 
modified  and  left  unmodified  in  the  following: 

Dark  human  shapes  could  be  made  out  in  the  distance,  flitting 
indistinctly  against  the  gloomy  border  of  the  forest,  and  near  the 
river  two  bronze  figures,  leaning  on  tall  spears,  stood  in  the  sunlight 
under  fantastic  head-dresses  of  spotted  skins,  warlike  and  still  in 
statuesque  repose.  And  from  right  to  left  along  the  lighted  shore 
moved  a  wild  and  gorgeous  apparition  of  a  woman. 

She  walked  with  measured  steps,  draped  in  striped  and  fringed 
cloths,  treading  the  earth  proudly,  with  a  slight  jingle  and  flash  of 
barbarous  ornaments.  She  carried  her  head  high;  her  hair  was 
done  in  the  shape  of  a  helmet;  she  had  brass  leggings  to  the  knee, 
brass  wire  gauntlets  to  the  elbow,  a  crimson  spot  on  her  tawny 
cheek,  innumerable  necklaces  of  glass  beads  on  her  neck;  bizarre 
things,  charms,  gifts  of  witch-men,  that  hung  about  her,  glittered 
and  trembled  at  every  step. — Joseph  Conrad. 

Dark  human    shapes =  negroes — but    with    the  change   the 
sense  of  mystery  is  gone. 

Bronze  figures  =  negroes — but  the  picture  is  gone. 
Walked  with  measured  step  =  paced — but  the  emphasis  is  lost. 
A  crimson  spot,  etc.  =  she  was  painted — but  the  picture  be- 
comes vague  in  color. 


66  THE  WRITING  OF  ENGLISH 

Where  a  single  word  does  the  work,  there  is  no  modifier: 
Note:  slight  jingle  and  flash;  and  helmet  over  against  innu- 
merable necklaces  of  glass  beads. 

Skill  in  effective  phrasing  means  perpetual  considera- 
tion and  balancing  of  the  bare  noun  or  verb  over  against 
noun  or  verb  with  modifiers.  If  you  are  speaking  of  familiar 
things,  you  must  either  omit  modifiers,  or  use  such  as  will 
make  the  familiar  seem  fresh  or  interesting.  If  you  are  speak- 
ing of  unfamiliar  things,  you  will  do  well  to  use  modifiers  that 
appeal  to  the  reader's  experience,  and  so  stimulate  his  imag- 
ination to  grasp  the  unknown. 

In  general,  if  a  modifier  can  be  omitted  without  making 
much  difference  in  the  effect  of  the  sentence,  let  it  go.  Avoid 
particularly  expressions  so  hackneyed  that  the  modifier  can 
scarcely  be  torn  from  the  noun  (see  Appendix,  p.  494),  and 
the  meaningless  use  of  the  adverb  very.  And  again,  get  rid 
of  the  idea  that  every  noun  must  be  accompanied  by  an 
adjective  and  every  verb  by  an  adverb,  which  results  in 
pairing  off  like  this: 

One  sunny  morning 

a  pretty  girl 

was  busily  gathering 

fragrant  violets 

along  the  shady  road 

near  the  babbling  brook 

that  ran  noisily 

through  the  green  valley 

Nothing  is  more  fatal  to  freshness  and  good  rhythm  in  writing 
than  this  mechanical  balance  in  modification. 

The  best  way  to  learn  when  and  how  to  use  modifiers  is  to 
study  the  practice  of  careful  writers.  If  your  tendency  is  to 
overload  your  work  with  adjectives  and  adverbs,  they  will 
teach  you  how  to  prune;  if  your  style  is  bald,  they  will  show 
you  how  to  add  the  right  word  in  the  right  place. 


THE  SENTENCE  67 

ASSIGNMENT 

1.  Analyze  the  use  of  modifiers  in  the  passage  on  p.  65. 

2.  Read  for  an  hour  something  by  one  of  the  following  writers: 
Kipling,  Stevenson,  Henry  James,  Meredith,  Joseph  Conrad,  W.  D. 
Howells,  W.  H.  Hudson,  John  Galsworthy,  or  H.  G.  Wells,  and  note 
on  cards,  with  page  references,  especially  effective  uses  of  modifiers. 
If  you  find  any  that  seem  to  you  ineffective,  or  even  bad,  note 
these  on  separate  cards.    Discuss  your  notes  in  class. 

3.  Repeat  the  exercise  with  the  work  of  an  unfamiliar  author; 
and  in  class  discussion  form  some  conclusion  as  to  his  merit  in  this 
respect. 

4.  PUNCTUATION 

You  cannot  write  good  sentences  until  you  understand 
the  relationship  between  sentence  structure  and  punctuation. 

Let  us  take  first  the  simple  sentence,  in  which  the  only 
mark  we  need  now  be  concerned  with  is  the  comma. 

The  close-knit  simple  sentence  with  every  element  standing 
in  its  normal  position  may  proceed  to  a  considerable  length 
without  the  use  of  a  single  comma  (as  in  this  case — 25  words). 
And  before  we  begin  to  discuss  the  introduction  of  commas, 
note  that  the  use  of  a  single  comma  between  subject  and 
predicate  interrupts  the  passing  over  of  the  thought  which  is 
the  essential  feature  of  the  sentence: 

The  roads,  became  impassable. 

For  this  punctuation  there  is  no  possible  excuse.  But  the 
error  is  especially  likely  to  occur  when  the  subject  of  the 
sentence  is  a  long  group  of  words. 

The  origin  of  the  error  perhaps  lies  in  a  failure  to  grasp 
the  difference  in  effect  between  one  comma  and  two 
commas.  One  comma  separates;  two  commas  set  apart  a 
group  of  words  as  forming  a  sort  of  island  around  which 
the  stream  of  thought  may  flow  without  interruption. 
Consequently,  whenever  a  long  modifier  is  placed  between 
the  subject  and  the  predicate,  it  is  set  off  from  the  rest  of 
the  sentence  by  two  commas.  This  promotes  clearness  and 


68  THE  WRITING  OF  ENGLISH 

does  not  bar  the  progress  of  the  thought  from  subject  to 
predicate : 

The  roads,  about 'd  week 'after  the  troops  had  been  moved,  became 
impassable. 

Aside  from  this  special  case,  the  use  of  the  comma  in  the 
simple  sentence  may  be  discussed  in  connection  with:  (1)  in- 
dependent elements;  (2)  adjective  modifiers;  and  (3)  adver- 
bial modifiers. 

Independent  elements,  that  is,  elements  that  modify  the 
sentence  as  a  whole,  should  always  be  separated  from  the 
rest  of  the  sentence,  usually  by  a  comma  or  commas.  Such 
elements  are: 

1.  Vocatives,  which  address  the  thought  to  some  person: 

You,  Gertrude,  ought  to  know. 

You  are  mistaken,  my  friend. 

Tell  me,  all  you  who  work  for  your  bread,  is  this  fair? 

2.  Adverbs  intensifying  or  qualifying  the  predication: 

Yes,  I  know. 

You  will  accept,  of  course. 

This  is  all,  naturally. 

On  the  whole,  it  is  a  good  plan. 

3.  Transitional  words,  phrases  or  clauses : 

To  sum  up,  we  cannot  afford  to  do  it. 
Finally,  the  plan  would  be  unpopular. 
As  I  said  before,  it  won't  do. 

4.  Interjections: 

Oh,  what  a  day! 

For  heaven  s  sake,  be  careful ! 

When,  however,  the  emphasis  is  shifted  from  the  whole  sen- 
tence to  the  interjection  itself,  an  exclamation  mark  should 
be  used  instead  of  the  comma: 

Oh!  what  a  day  that  was. 
For  heaven's  sake!  be  careful. 

See  Appendix,  p.  447. 


THE  SENTENCE  69 

When  an  adjective  modifier, — word  or  phrase, — standing 
in  its  normal  position  immediately  before  or  after  the  sub- 
stantive, is  regarded  as  essential  to  the  meaning  of  the  sub- 
stantive, it  should  never  be  separated  from  it  by  a  comma: 

The  president  of  the  United  States. 
The  Man  with  the  Hoe. 
The  Research  Magnificent. 

But  when  such  a  modifier  is  non-essential,  that  is,  when  it 
contains  an  idea  to  which  the  reader's  attention  is  directed 
as  distinct  from  the  substantive  modified,  with  more  or  less 
emphasis,  it  should  be  separated  from  its  substantive  by  a 
comma: 

Frightened,  the  horse  bolted. 

The  horse,  frightened  by  the  noise,  bolted. 

The  appositive  is  a  noun  which  performs  a  function  very 
similar  to  that  of  the  non-essential  adjective.  It  always 
follows  the  substantive  with  which  it  stands  in  apposition, 
and  is  set  off  by  a  comma  or  commas  from  the  rest  of  the 
sentence: 

The  committee  consists  of  Mr.  Lloyd,  the  president  of  the  society, 
Mr.  Perkins,  our  minister,  and  Mr.  Howell,  the  banker. 

When  two  or  more  adjectives  modify  the  same  noun,  first 
consider  whether  they  separately  modify  the  noun,  or  whether 
some  of  them  blend  with  others  to  modify  it.  When  you 
wish  each  to  modify  the  noun  and  to  convey  a  distinct  im- 
pression apart  from  the  others,  insert  commas;  where  there 
is  no  comma,  it  is  understood  that  all  the  adjectives  blend  to 
form  a  single  impression — that  they  represent,  as  it  were,  a 
single  adjective.  Thus: 

He  wore  a  low-crowned,  broad-brimmed,  light  gray  felt  hat. 

Here  low-crowned  and  broad-brimmed  give  separate  impres- 
sions, while  light  modifies  gray,  and  gray  modifies  felt,  and  the 
blended  impression  light-gray-felt  modifies  hat. 


70  THE  WRITING  OF  ENGLISH 

Again :  A  hard  little  green  apple  =  a  hard-little-green  (i.  e.,  unripe) 
apple. 

When  the  adjectives  are  connected  by  conjunctions,  no 
commas  are  needed  unless  great  emphasis  is  to  be  thrown 
on  each  separate  impression: 

Good  men  and  true;  a  punishment  cruel  and  unusual;  blue  and 
green  feathers. 

But: 

Very  charitable  was  the  lady,  humble,  and  gracious,  and  soft- 
spoken. 

The  members  of  a  series  of  adjective  phrases  modifying  the 
same  noun  must  always  be  separated  from  one  another  by 
commas: 

With  a  ribbon  in  her  hair,  a  flower  in  her  sash,  and  gay  buckles 
on  her  shoes,  the  little  girl  danced  into  the  room. 

While  adjective  modifiers  are  usually  held  close  to  the 
substantive  that  they  modify,  adverbial  modifiers  move 
freely  about  the  sentence.  Sometimes,  for  the  sake  of  em- 
phasis or  transition,  they  begin  the  sentence;  sometimes,  for 
the  sake  of  rhythm,  they  stand  between  subject  and  predicate; 
sometimes,  they  are  separated  from  the  verb  that  they 
modify  and  placed  at  the  very  end  of  the  sentence. 

The  general  rule  for  adverbs  and  adverbial  phrases  is  that 
when  they  are  essential  modifiers  and  stand  next  to  the  word 
that  they  modify,  they  should  not  be  separated  from  it  by 
a  comma.  If,  however,  they  are  non-essential  and  more  or 
less  emphatic,  the  comma  may  be  used: 

I  usually  have  tea  in  the  afternoon. 
Except  in  bad  weather  I  walk,  usually. 

But  when  the  adverb  is  dislocated — separated  from  the 
word  that  it  modifies,  it  must  always  be  set  apart  by  a  comma 
or  commas  if  there  is  any  possibility  of  misunderstanding: 

Within,  the  house  was  a  marvelous  picture. 
Within  the  house  was  a  marvelous  picture. 


THE  SENTENCE  71 

Again,  the  comma  may  be  used  when  special  emphasis 
is  desired  for  the  adverb : 

Obviously  you  are  overworking. 
Obviously,  you  are  overworking. 

The  members  of  a  series  of  adverbs  or  adverbial  phrases 
should  always  be  separated  by  commas: 

Silently,  noiselessly,  breathlessly,  they  crept  along. 
An  industrial  feudalism  was  dreamed  of  by  Saint-Simon,   by 
Comte,  and  by  Carlyle. 

We  may  perhaps  sum  up  the  punctuation  of  the  simple 
sentence  thus :  As  long  as  the  thought  progresses  with  normal 
emphasis,  and  the  modifiers  need  no  more  attention  than  they 
get  as  essential  to  the  words  that  they  modify,  the  sentence 
moves  forward  without  commas;  but  when  the  thought  is 
interrupted,  for  the  sake  of  emphasizing  certain  aspects  of 
it,  and  in  the  process  certain  elements  of  the  sentence  are 
dislocated,  the  grouping  of  the  words  must  be  shown  by  the 
commas  that  serve  both  to  unify  and  to  separate.  Two  com- 
mas unify  into  a  group  the  words  that  they  inclose;  a  single 
comma  separates  the  two  words  between  which  it  stands. 

The  tendency  to-day  is  to  use  as  few  commas  as  are  con- 
sistent with  perfect  clearness. 

The  principles  for  the  punctuation  of  the  simple  sentence 
apply  to  the  interior  punctuation  of  the  clauses  of  compound 
and  complex  sentences;  the  connection  of  these  clauses  with 
one  another  requires  special  discussion. 

ASSIGNMENT 

1.  Justify  each  use  of  the  comma  in  the  following  sentences: 

(1)  "He  was  a  rough,  cold,  gloomy  man." 

(2)  "He  was  a  sour,  small,  bilious  man,  with  a  long  face  and 
very  dark  eyes;  fifty-six  years  old,  sound  and  active  in  body,  and 
with  an  air  somewhat  between  that  of  a  shepherd  and  that  of  a 
man  following  the  sea." 

(3)  "Flake  after  flake  descended  out  of  the  black  night  air, 
silent,  circuitous,  interminable." 


72  THE  WRITING  OF  ENGLISH 

(4)  "The  poet  was  a  rag  of  a  man,  dark,  little,  and  lean,  with 
hollow  cheeks  and  thin  black  locks." 

(5)  "It  was  an  eloquent,  sharp,  ugly,  earthly  countenance." 

(6)  "He  had  forgotten  all  fear  of  the  patrol,  .  .  .  and  had  no 
idea  but  that  of  his  lost  purse." 

(7)  "A  tall  figure  of  a  man,  muscular  and  spare,  but  a  little 
bent,  confronted  Villon." 

(8)  "The  head  was  massive  in  bulk,  but  finely  sculptured;  the 
nose  blunt  at  the  bottom,  but  refining  upward  to  where  it  joined 
a  pair  of  strong  and  honest  eyebrows;  the  mouth  and  eyes  sur- 
rounded with  delicate  markings,  and  the  whole  face  based  upon 
a  thick  white  beard,  boldly  and  squarely  trimmed.  ...    It  looked 
perhaps  nobler  than  it  had  a  right  to  do  ...  it  was  a  fine  face, 
honorable  rather  than  intelligent,  strong,  simple,  and  righteous." 

(9)  "He  preceded  the  poet  upstairs   into  a  large  apartment, 
warmed  with  a  pan  of  charcoal  and  lit  by  a  great  lamp  hanging 
from  the  roof.  .  .  .     Some  smart  tapestry  hung  upon  the  walls, 
representing  the  crucifixion  of  our  Lord  in  one  piece,  and  in  another 
a  scene  of  shepherds  and  shepherdesses  by  a  running  stream." 

— Stevenson. 

(10)  "He  was  sixty  if  a  day;  a  little  man,  with  a  broad,  not  very 
straight  back,  with  bowed  shoulders  and  one  leg  more  bandy  than 
the  other,  he  had  that  queer  twisted-about  appearance  you  see  so 
often  in  men  who  work  in  the  fields.    He  had  a  nut-cracker  face — 
chin  and  nose  trying  to  come  together  over  a  sunken  mouth — and 
it  was  framed  in  iron-gray  fluffy  hair,  looking  like  a  chin-strap  of 
cotton-wool  sprinkled  with  coal-dust.     And  he  had  blue  eyes  in 
that  old  face  of  his,  amazingly  like  a  boy's,  with  that  candid  ex- 
pression some  quite  common  men  preserve  to  the  end  of  their  days 
by  a  rare  internal  gift  of  simplicity  of  heart  and  rectitude  of  soul." 

— Joseph  Conrad. 

2.  Try  the  effect  of  changing  the  punctuation  of  the  passages 
just  given  wherever  it  seems  to  you  that  commas  might  be  omitted 
or  inserted. 

3.  Summarize  in  about  100  words,  in  language  as  different  as 
possible  from  that  used  in  this  section,  your  understanding  of  the 
use  of  the  comma  in  connection  with  modifiers. 


5.  COMPOUND  ELEMENTS 

A  special  problem  in  the  punctuation  of  the  simple  sentence 
is  introduced  when  we  have  a  series  of  two  or  more  substan- 
tives used  as  one  substantive,  or  a  series  of  verbs  used  to- 
gether in  the  predicate. 


•    THE  SENTENCE  73 

When  only  two  words  are  so  used  together,  they  are  simply 
connected  by  a  conjunction.  In  the  following  example  all 
the  elements  are  dual: 

Charlton-and-I — met-and-dined  with — the-Grants-and-the-Lees. 

When,  however,  more  than  two  words  are  used  together  as 
a  series,  the  problem  becomes  more  difficult.  The  following 
sentences  are  all  correctly  punctuated,  but  each  conveys  a 
different  effect  from  the  others: 

1.  I  liked  best  the  pumas  and  the  leopards  and  the  jaguars. 
Here  the  three  nouns  are  as  closely  connected  as  possible. 

2.  I  liked  best  the  pumas,  the  leopards,  and  the  jaguars. 

Here  the  image  evoked  by  each  noun  is  rather  more  distinct; 
and  the  and  between  the  last  two  members  of  the  series  shows 
that  no  more  animals  are  to  be  mentioned. 

3.  I  liked  best  the  pumas,  and  the  leopards,  and  the  jaguars. 
Here  there  is  a  distinct  pause  after  each  noun. 

4.  I  was  most  interested  in  the  pumas,  the  leopards,  the  jaguars. 

Here  only  the  position  of  the  nouns  shows  that  they  form 
a  series;  each  member  is  viewed  separately. 

From  these  examples,  you  see  that  the  comma  alone  sep- 
arates most  distinctly;  and  alone  connects  most  closely;  while 
midway  between  these  extremes  we  find  the  usual  method 
of  dealing  with  a  multiple  element,  which  is  to  use  commas 
alone  except  between  the  last  two  members  where  and  is  in- 
serted to  show  that  the  end  of  the  series  has  been  reached. 

Some  writers  omit  the  comma  when  and  is  used  between 
the  last  two  members;  but  this  practice  is  not  to  be  com- 
mended unless  the  last  two  members  are  to  be  more  closely 
connected  than  the  others,  as: 

We  had  a  boiled  egg,  fruit,  bread  and  butter. 
As  the  sentence  stands,  it  means  that  the  bread  was  buttered; 


74  THE  WRITING  OF  ENGLISH 

if  the  comma  is  inserted,  the  meaning  is  that  the  bread  and 
butter  were  two  separate  articles : 

We  had  a  boiled  egg,  fruit,  bread,  and  butter. 

By  the  manipulation  of  commas  and  conjunctions  you  can 
either  blend  the  members  of  a  multiple  subject,  or  predicate, 
or  any  other  element,  so  that  they  will  make  a  unified  im- 
pression; or  so  separate  them  that  each  individual  part  of 
the  multiple  will  receive  any  degree  of  emphasis  that  you 
wish  to  give  it. 

ASSIGNMENT 

1.  Punctuate  the  following  sentences  in  every  way  that  is  per- 
missible, both  with  and  without  conjunctions;  and  discuss  the  dif- 
ferent effects  that  you  obtain: 

(1)  The  Grants  and  the  Lees  will  meet  at  the  Belmont  and  dine 
at  seven. 

(2)  The  scarlet  crimson  purple  bronze  lemon-colored  autumn 
leaves  overarched  the  road. 

(3)  "A  pair  of  swing  doors  gives  admittance  to  a  hall  with  a 
carved  roof,  hung  with  legal  portraits,  adorned  with  legal  statuary, 
lighted  by  windows  of  painted  glass,  and  warmed  by  three  vast 
fires." — Stevenson. 

(4)  "Two  inset  cupboards   were  filled   with   glass  and   china. 
There  were  four  Chippendale  chairs  and  an  oval  Sheraton  table, 
curtains  of  purple  silk,  some  old  English  water-colors,  and  two 
candlesticks  of  Sheffield  plate." — Compton  Mackenzie. 

(5)  "Geoffrey  Day's  storehouse  at  the  back  of  his  dwelling  was 
hung  with  bunches  of  dried  horehound,  mint,  and  sage,  brown- 
paper  bags  of  thyme  and  lavender,  and  long  ropes  of  clean  onions. 
On  shelves  were  spread  large  red  and  yellow  apples,  and  choice 
selections  of  early  potatoes  for  seed  next  year." — Hardy. 

2.  Explain  the  use  or  omission  of  commas  and  conjunctions  in 
the  following: 

(1)  "O  youth!    The  strength  of  it,  the  faith  of  it,  the  imagination 
of  it!    To  me  she  was  not  an  old  rattle-trap  carting  about  the  world 
a  lot  of  coal  for  a  freight — to  me  she  was  the  endeavor,  the  test, 
the  trial  of  life.  .  .  ." — Joseph  Conrad. 

(2)  "The  sky  was  a  miracle  of  purity,  a  miracle  of  azure.    The 
sea  was  polished,  was  blue,  was  pellucid,  was  sparkling  like  a  precious 


THE  SENTENCE  75 

stone,  extending  on  all  sides,  all  round  to  the  horizon — as  if  the 
whole  terrestrial  globe  had  been  one  jewel,  one  colossal  sapphire,  a 
single  gem  fashioned  into  a  planet." — Joseph  Conrad. 

(3)  "The  first  thing  I  did  was  to  put  my  head  down  the  square 
of  the  midship  ventilator.  As  I  lifted  the  lid  a  visible  breath,  some- 
thing like  a  thin  fog,  a  puff  of  faint  haze,  rose  from  the  opening. 
The  ascending  air  was  hot,  and  had  a  heavy,  sooty,  paramny  smell. 
I  gave  one  sniff,  and  put  down  the  lid  gently.  It  was  no  use  choking 
myself.  The  cargo  was  on  fire." — Joseph  Conrad. 

3.  Analyze  and  discuss  the  use  and  omission  of  conjunctions 
and  commas  in  the  following;  the  same  principles  hold  in  compound 
and  complex  sentences  as  in  simple: 

"It  was  a  day  of  the  unmatchable  clear  jEgean  spring;  Samothrace 
and  Euboea  were  stretched  out  in  the  sunset  like  giants  watching 
the  chess,  waiting,  it  seemed,  almost  like  human  things,  as  they 
had  waited  for  the  fall  of  Troy  and  the  bale-fires  of  Agamemnon. 
Those  watchers  saw  the  dotted  order  of  our  advance  stretching 
across  the  Peninsula,  moving  slowly  forward,  and  halting  and 
withering  away,  among  fields  of  flowers  of  spring  and  the  young 
corn  that  would  never  come  to  harvest.  They  saw  the  hump  of 
Achi  Baba  flicker  and  burn  and  roll  up  to  heaven  in  a  swathe  of 
blackness,  and  multitudinous  brightness  changing  the  face  of  the 
earth,  and  the  dots  of  our  line  still  coming,  still  moving  forward, 
and  halting  and  withering  away,  but  still  moving  up  among  the 
flashes  and  the  darkness,  more  men,  and  yet  more  men,  from  the 
fields  of  sacred  France,  from  the  darkness  of  Senegal,  from  sheep- 
runs  at  the  ends  of  the  earth,  from  blue-gum  forests,  and  sunny 
islands,  places  of  horses  and  good  fellows,  from  Irish  pastures  and 
glens,  and  from  many  a  Scotch  and  English  city  and  village  and 
quiet  farm;  they  went  on  and  they  went  on,  up  ridges  blazing  with 
explosion  into  the  darkness  of  death.  Sometimes,  as  the  light  failed, 
and  peak  after  peak  that  had  been  burning  against  the  sky  grew 
rigid  as  the  color  faded,  the  darkness  of  the  great  blasts  hid  sec- 
tions of  the  line,  but  when  the  darkness  cleared  they  were  still 
there,  line  after  line  of  dots,  still  more,  still  moving  forward  and 
halting  and  withering  away,  and  others  coming,  and  halting  and 
withering  away,  and  others  following,  as  though  those  lines  were 
not  flesh  and  blood  and  breaking  nerve  but  some  tide  of  the  sea 
coming  in  waves  that  fell  yet  advanced,  that  broke  a  little  further, 
and  gained  some  yards  in  breaking,  and  were  then  followed,  and 
slowly  grew,  that  halted  and  seemed  to  wither,  and  then  gathered 
and  went  on,  till  night  covered  those  moving  dots,  and  the  great 
slope  was  nothing  but  a  blackness  spangled  with  the  flashes  of 
awful  fire."— John  Masefield. 


76  THE  WRITING  OF  ENGLISH 

6.  THE  COMPOUND  SENTENCE 

The  compound  sentence  is  a  series  of  simple  sentences 
joined  in  one.  It  is  to  be  distinguished  from  the  simple  sen- 
tence with  multiple  subject  and  predicate  by  the  fact  that 
it  is  a  series  of  clauses,  that  is,  of  pairs  of  subject-and- 
predicate.  In  the  following: 

Ethel-and-Frances  (multiple  subject)  played-and-sang  (multiple 
predicate)  for  us, 

although  both  subject  and  predicate  are  compound,  the 
sentence  itself  is  simple  because  it  contains  but  one  predica- 
tion; it  might  have  been  expressed: 

My  sisters  (single  subject)  gave  us  music  (single  predicate), 
Ethel   (single  subject)   played   (single  predicate),  and  Frances 
(single  subject)  sang  (single  predicate)  for  us. 

Here  the  sentence  is  compound  because  it  contains  a  pair  of 
clauses :  Ethel-played — Frances-sang. 

In  the  compound  sentence  each  element  of  a  clause  may, 
of  course,  be  either  simple  or  compound : 

Ethel-and-Frances  play-and-sing;  but  Margaret  dances  well. 

In  a  compound  sentence  all  the  clauses  are  independent, 
and  could  by  the  omission  of  the  conjunctions,  and  the  sub- 
stitution of  end  punctuation  marks  (.  ?  !)  for  interior  punc- 
tuation marks  (,  ;)  be  converted  into  a  succession  of  simple 
sentences.  But  do  not  suppose  that  any  group  whatever  of 
simple  sentences  can  be  combined  to  form  a  compound  sen- 
tence. The  basic  principle  on  which  every  compound  sen- 
tence must  be  constructed  is  parallelism;  that  is,  as  all  the 
clauses  are  coordinate — similar  in  structure — so  they  must  be 
correlative  in  content  and  similar  in  form. 

To  be  correlative  in  content,  all  the  clauses  should  develop 
ideas  of  approximately  the  same  importance.  Only  for  pur- 
poses of  humor  is  the  coordination  of  important  and  unim- 
portant ideas  permissible. 


THE  SENTENCE  77 

In  serious  writing  all  the  lesser  ideas  should  be  rigorously 
subordinated — expressed  in  dependent  clauses  or  in  phrases. 

As  a  rule,  all  the  clauses  of  a  compound  sentence  should 
express  the  same  kind  of  idea:  concrete  or  abstract;  specific  or 
general;  literal  or  figurative.  In  the  following  sentence  the 
first  clause  is  concrete  and  specific,  and  the  second  is  abstract 
and  general,  with  the  effect  that  the  second  shows  a  distinct 
falling  off  in  interest.  Compare  the  second  version,  in  which 
every  detail  in  the  second  clause  is  as  specific  and  as  concrete 
as  in  the  first: 

The  ripple  of  the  wind  in  the  foliage  stirred  my  pulses — and  the 
beauty  of  the  scene  moved  me  strangely. 

The  ripple  of  the  wind  in  the  foliage  stirred  my  pulses,  and  a 
sudden  glimpse  of  the  green  and  golden  plain  that  rolled  away  to  a 
purple  horizon  of  sea  set  my  blood  spinning  with  delight. 

In  a  compound  sentence  involving  figures,  a  single  figure 
may  be  carried  through  all  the  clauses,  or  a  succession  of 
slightly  felt  and  not  disturbingly  incongruous  figures  may  be 
used: 

The  snow  lay  on  the  beach  to  the  tide-mark.  It  was  daubed  on 
to  the  sills  of  the  ruin;  it  roosted  in  the  crannies  of  the  rock  like 
white  sea-birds;  even  on  outlying  reefs  there  would  be  a  little  cock 
of  snow,  like  a  toy  lighthouse.  Everything  was  grey  and  white  in 
a  cold  and  dolorous  sort  of  shepherd's  plaid. — Stevenson. 

A  single  slight  figure  may  also  be  introduced  into  one  clause 
and  not  into  the  others: 

The  feathers  swept;  the  wings  spread  out  as  sails  that  take  the  wind. 

— Algernon  Blackwood. 

In  trying  to  make  the  clauses  of  compound  sentences 
correlative  in  content,  note  that  they  are  most  commonly 
used  for  holding  different  classes  of  things  side  by  side: 

1.  Details  of  a  description  of  approximately  the  same  im- 
portance: 

Clumps  of  fruit-trees  marked  the  villages;  slim  palms  put  their 
nodding  heads  together  above  the  low  houses;  dried  palm-leaf 


78  THE  WRITING  OF  ENGLISH 

roofs  shone  afar,  like  roofs  of  gold,  behind  the  dark  colonnade  of 
tree-trunks;  figures  passed  vivid  and  vanishing;  the  smoke  of  fires 
stood  upright  above  the  masses  of  flowering  bushes;  bamboo  fences 
glittered,  running  away  in  broken  lines  between  the  fields. 

— Joseph  Conrad. 

2.  Simultaneous  or  successive  events  of  about  the  same 
importance: 

A  small  cloud  passes  over  the  face  of  the  Moon,  and  the  city  and 
its  inhabitants — clear  drawn  in  black  and  white  before — fade  into 
masses  of  black  and  deeper  black. — Kipling. 

There  was  a  sharp  clink  of  glass  bracelets ;  a  woman's  arm  showed 
for  an  instant  above  the  parapet,  twined  itself  round  the  lean  little 
neck,  and  the  child  was  dragged  back,  protesting,  to  the  shelter  of 
the  bedstead. — Kipling. 

It  is  also  true,  however,  that  any  relationship  expressed 
by  the  subordinate  clauses  of  a  complex  sentence  may,  for 
the  sake  of  emphasis,  be  coordinated  as  a  clause  of  a  com- 
pound sentence:  In  the  following  examples,  you  will  find  the 
relationships  of  cause  and  effect,  condition,  concession,  and 
so  on: 

Some  poor  soul  has  risen  to  throw  a  jar  of  water  over  his  fevered 
body;  the  tinkle  of  the  falling  water  strikes  faintly  on  the  ear 
(meaning,  as  some  poor  soul,  etc.). — Kipling. 

The  open  square  in  front  of  the  Mosque  is  crowded  with  corpses; 
and  a  man  must  pick  his  way  carefully  for  fear  of  treading  on  them 
(meaning,  since  the  open  square,  etc.). — Kipling. 

"Feed  a  cold  and  starve  a  fever"  (meaning,  //  you  feed  a  cold, 
you  will  be  obliged  to  starve  a  fever). 

A  ray  of  sunlight  fell  across  the  face  of  the  sleeper;  he  did  not 
stir  (meaning,  although  a  ray,  etc.). 

As  a  rule,  students  tend  to  use  too  many  'compound 
sentences.  They  are  particularly  fond  of  the  vague  articula- 
tion of  clauses  by  means  of  so,  and  and  so.  This  form  of 
connection  covers  so  many  relationships  that  it  conveys  no 
definite  meaning  beyond  that  of  mere  succession.  For  this 
reason  you  should  avoid  it  altogether  until  you  have  become 


THE  SENTENCE  79 

expert  in  subordination.  This  point  will  be  discussed  further 
in  connection  with  the  complex  sentence. 

The  clauses  of  a  compound  sentence  should  be  parallel  in 
form  as  well  as  in  content.  To  secure  this  parallelism,  they 
should  all  as  a  rule  be  declarative,  or  interrogative,  or  ex- 
clamatory. Occasionally,  to  express  a  sudden  turn  of  thought 
or  a  contrast,  the  second  of  two  clauses  may  be  interrogative, 
when  the  first  is  declarative: 

He  owes  all  his  success  to  me;  but  what  difference  does  that  make? 

But  the  declarative  and  exclamatory  forms,  and  the  interrog- 
ative and  exclamatory  forms  should  never  be  combined  by 
the  inexperienced  writer.  The  following  example  is  a  typ- 
ically ineffective  student  sentence: 

The  children  danced;  and  oh,  how  they  laughed! 

Further,  the  sentence  elements — subject,  predicate,  mod- 
ifiers— within  each  clause  should  occupy  relatively  the  same 
position  as  in  every  other.  All  the  sentences  quoted  above 
illustrate  this  point. 

Occasionally,  to  point  a  contrast,  the  order  in  two  clauses 
is  exactly  reversed;  but  to  be  effective,  this  arrangement 
must  be  apparent  at  a  glance,  thus: 

For  the  country  people  to  see  Edinburgh  on  her  hilltops,  is  one 
thing;  it  is  another  for  the  citizen,  from  the  thick  of  his  affairs,  to 
overlook  the  country. — Stevenson. 

The  punctuation  between  the  clauses  of  a  compound  sen- 
tence follows  the  rule  for  punctuating  the  members  of  a 
series  of  words,  except  that  when  commas  are  required  for  any 
reason  within  the  clauses,  semicolons  are  often  used  to  mark 
the  larger  divisions  of  the  thought. 

The  rules  may  perhaps  be  summed  up  thus: 
1.  Short,  simple  clauses  may  be  connected  by  a  conjunc- 
tion alone,  or  by  a  conjunction  and  comma,  according  to  the 
degree  of  separation  desired:  \ 


80  THE  WRITING  OF  ENGLISH 

I  like  Meredith  but  Grace  does  not. 
I  like  Meredith,  but  Grace  does  not. 

It  is  not  advisable  to  use  the  comma  alone.  If  decided  dis- 
junction is  desired,  even  in  a  short  sentence  the  semicolon 
is  better: 

I  like  Meredith;  Grace  does  not. 

2.  In  a  series  of  short,  simple  clauses  in  which  no  commas 
are  required  for  internal  punctuation,  the  usual  rules  for 
punctuating  a  series  hold,  except  that  the  conjunction  alone 
does  not  always  serve  to  distinguish  between  the  clauses  of  a 
compound  sentence  and  compound  elements  in  a  simple 
sentence: 

The  storm  rattled  windows  and  doors  everywhere  blew  shut. 

For  this  reason,  we  may  use  either  commas  alone,  with  a 
single  and  between  the  last  two  clauses,  or  commas  and  con- 
junctions throughout: 

The  rain  hissed,  it  gurgled,  and  it  foamed  in  a  torrent  along  the 
deck. 

The  rain  hissed,  and  the  wind  boomed  in  the  rigging,  and  the 
occasional  crash  of  a  wave  over  our  heads  drowned  speech. 

3.  Whenever  commas  are  needed  for  interior  punctuation, 
the  clauses  themselves  must  be  separated  by  semicolons. 
Many  of  the  compound  sentences  quoted  above  illustrate  this 
rule. 

4.  Whenever  strong  emphasis  is  desired  for  each  clause  in 
turn,  semicolons  may  be  used  without  regard  to  interior 
punctuation. 

The  clauses  of  an  interrogative  or  an  exclamatory  com- 
pound sentence  may  be  separated  by  commas  when  the 
emphasis  of  question  or  exclamation  is  on  the  sentence  as  a 
whole;  but  when  it  is  desirable  to  stress  each  clause,  the  ques- 
tion mark,  or  exclamation  mark  may  be  placed  after  each 
clause  as  well  as  at  the  end  of  the  sentence: 


THE  SENTENCE  81 

Have  you  had  the  sea  under  your  windows  at  Mentone?  have 
you  sniffed  its  heliotrope  hedges  in  mid-winter?  have  you  basked  in 
the  olive  gardens  that  warm  its  encompassing  foothills?  have  you 
penetrated  the  long  narrow  valleys  that  lead  away  to  the  bare  high 
Alps?  and  have  you  dreamed  in  the  Arab  villages  that  crown  their 
isolated  peaks? 

How  I  have  wondered  what  those  ancient  men  really  thought! 
how  I  have  pored  over  the  few  relics  of  their  armor,  their  ornaments, 
their  household  wares,  for  a  glimpse  into  their  minds!  how  I  have 
pondered  over  scraps  of  their  writing  and  lingered  among  the  ruins 
of  their  dwelling  places! 

ASSIGNMENT 

1.  Explain  the  structure  of  the  following  sentences,  and  show 
by  experiment  that  the  use  of  punctuation  marks  and  of  conjunc- 
tions is  in  each  case  right.  Distinguish  between  the  comma  and 
the  semicolon,  and  note  where  the  conjunction  is  used  and  where 
omitted: 

"Last  night  it  was  a  fordable  shallow;  tonight  five  miles  of  raving 
muddy  water  parted  bank  and  caving  bank,  and  the  river  was  still 
rising  under  the  moon." — Kipling. 

"With  Wednesday,  the  week  stirs  itself,  turns  over,  begins  to 
wake.  There  are  matine'es  on  Wednesday;  on  Wednesday  some  of 
the  more  genial  weekly  papers  come  out.  .  .  .  On  Monday  they 
[friends]  may  not  have  returned  from  the  country;  on  Friday  they 
have  begun  to  go  out  of  town  again;  but  on  Wednesday  they  are 
here,  at  home — are  solid.  .  .  . 

"  On  Thursday  the  week  falls  back  a  little;  the  stirring  of  Wednes- 
day is  forgotten;  there  is  a  return  to  the  folding  of  the  hands.  .  .  . 
There  is  nothing  strong  and  downright  and  fine  about  it.  ... 

"  Wednesday  is  calm,  assured,  urbane;  Friday  allows  itself  to  be  a 
little  flurried  and  excited.  Wednesday  stands  alone;  Friday  to 
some  extent  throws  in  its  lot  with  Saturday.  .  .  .  Too  many 
papers  come  out,  too  many  bags  are  packed,  on  Friday.  .  .  . 
But  Saturday  and  Sunday  are  what  we  individually  make  of  them. 
In  one  family  they  are  friends,  associates;  in  another  as  ill-assorted 
as  Socrates  and  Xantippe.  For  most  of  us  Saturday  is  not  exactly 
a  day  at  all,  it  is  a  collection  of  hours,  part  work,  part  pleasure  and 
all  restlessness.  .  .  . 

"  Sunday  even  more  than  Saturday  is  different  as  people  are  dif- 
ferent. To  the  godly  it  is  a  day  of  low  tones;  its  minutes  go  by 
muffled;  to  the  children  of  the  godly  it  is  eternity.  .  .  . 

"  To  one  man  it  is  the  interruption  of  the  week;  to  another  it  is 


82  THE  WRITING  OF  ENGLISH 

the  week  itself,  and  all  the  rest  of  the  days  are  but  preparations 
for  it." — E.  V.  Lucas. 

2.  Punctuate  the  following  sentences: 

"A  strapping  girl  with  high  cheek  bones  and  a  broad  dark  comely 
face  washed  plates  and  glasses  assiduously  and  two  waiters  with 
eyes  as  near  together  as  a  monkey's  served  the  customers  with  be- 
wildering intelligence.  .  .  .  Meanwhile  every  one  shouted  the 
naphtha  flared  the  drums  beat  the  horses  champed.  .  .  . 

"  And  then  the  shifting  flames  came  gradually  into  a  mass  and 
took  a  steady  upward  progress  and  the  melancholy  strains  of  an 
ancient  ecclesiastical  lamentation  reached  our  listening  ears.  .  .  . 
On  the  bridge  I  found  a  little  band  of  Roman  soldiers  on  horseback 
without  stirrups  and  had  a  few  words  with  one  of  them  as  to  his 
anachronistic  cigarette  and  then  the  first  torches  arrived  carried 
by  proud  boys  in  red.  .  .  . 

"...  This  car  was  drawn  by  an  ancient  white  horse  amiable  and 
tractable  as  a  saint  but  as  bewildered  as  I  as  to  the  meaning  of  the 
whole  strange  business.  .  .  .  And  after  them  the  painted  plaster 
Virgin  carried  as  upright  as  possible  and  then  more  torches  and 
the  wailing  band  and  after  the  band  another  guard  of  Roman 
soldiers." — E.  V.  Lucas. 

3.  Find  and  study  all  the  compound  sentences  on  p.  186  of  this 
book.    Try  the  effect  of  breaking  them  into  simple  sentences,  and 
discuss  the  punctuation  of  each  as  it  stands.     Criticize  them  with 
respect  to  parallelism,  by  answering  the  questions:  Are  the  ideas 
expressed  in  the  parallel  clauses  of  the  same  general  kind — literal  or 
figurative?  abstract  or  concrete?  general  or  specific?    Are  they  of 
approximately  the  same  degree  of  importance? 

4.  In  the  same  passage  see  whether  you  can  find  any  groups  of 
two  or  three  simple  sentences  that  might  have  been  combined  into 
a  single  compound  sentence.     Combine  them,  and  decide  whether 
the  change  is  an  improvement  or  not. 

7.  THE  COMPLEX  SENTENCE 

A  complex  sentence  is  constructed  by  subordinating  one 
simple  sentence  to  another.  This  produces  a  form  with  one 
principal  clause,  and  one  or  more  subordinate  clauses  used 
as  substantives,  as  adjectives,  or  as  adverbs. 

Thus  we  may  make  two  simple  sentences  to  express  two 
"observations: 


THE  SENTENCE  83 

It  is  snowing.    It  is  a  pity. 

Or  we  may  combine  these  observations  into  a  complex  sen- 
tence by  subordinating  the  less  important: 
It  is  a  pity  thai  it  is  snowing. 

Here  the  sentence  it  is  snowing  is  converted  into  a  clause 
subordinated  by  means  of  the  conjunction  that,  and  used  as  a 
substantive  in  apposition  with  the  subject  it.  The  clause 
might  have  been  used  as  the  subject  itself: 

That  it  is  snowing  is  a  pity. 

Again,  we  may  say: 

This  tree  is  a  sycamore.    It  has  white  patches  on  its  trunk. 

Or  we  may  combine  these  two  simple  sentences  by  sub- 
ordinating the  less  important  thus : 

This  tree,  which  has  white  patches  on  its  trunk,  is  a  sycamore. 

Here  the  subordinate  clause  is  subordinated  and  connected 
by  the  relative  pronoun  which,  and  is  used  as  an  adjective 
modifying  tree. 

We  may,  if  we  please,  subordinate  the  other  idea  thus: 

This  tree,  which  is  a  sycamore,  has  white  patches  on  its  trunk. 

Again,  we  may  say: 

I  am  sitting  in  the  sunshine.    It  is  warm  here. 

These  two  observations  may  be  combined  into  a  complex 
sentence  by  subordinating  either,  to  throw  emphasis  on  the 
other: 

I  am  sitting  in  the  sunshine  where  it  is  warm; 
or: 

Where  I  am  sitting  in  the  sunshine,  it  is  warm. 

In  each  case  the  relative  adverb  where  connects  with  the  prin- 
cipal clause  a  subordinate  clause  used  as  an  adverb  modifying 
a  verb. 


84  THE  WRITING  OF  ENGLISH 

A  complex  sentence  may  have  any  number  of  subordinate 
clauses,  but  only  one  principal  clause. 

A  compound  sentence  may  also  be  modified  by  subordinate 
clauses  in  the  same  way  as  a  simple  sentence,  and  is  then 
called  compound-complex. 

The  complex  and  compound-complex  sentences  involve 
exactly  the  same  problems  of  Composition,  and  can  be  dis- 
cussed together. 

For  further  discussion  of  the  grammar  of  the  complex 
sentence,  see  Appendix  VIII. 

The  problems  in  constructing  the  complex  sentence  are: 

1.  What  shall  be  subordinated? 

2.  How  shall  the  subordinate  clauses  be  constructed  and 
punctuated? 

3.  How  shall  they  be  arranged  with  reference  to  one 
another  and  to  the  principal  clause? 

1.  To  secure  correct  subordination,  it  is  sometimes  nec- 
essary to  stop  and  ask  yourself:  Which  is  the  idea  that  I 
wish  to  emphasize?  Answer  this,  and  subordinate  the  other 
ideas.  Unless  you  take  this  trouble,  you  will  often  find  your- 
self inadvertently  twisting  the  emphasis  of  your  sentence,  thus : 

I  was  in  France  when  I  saw  a  fight  in  the  air. 
The  chances  are  that  you  mean: 

When  I  was  in  France  I  saw  a  fight  in  the  air. 

Which  idea  is  emphatic?  the  fight  or  the  place  of  the  observer? 
The  when  belongs  before  the  less  important  clause. 

Note  particularly  this  twist  in  subordination  in  the  so- 
type  of  sentence,  beloved  by  students : 

It  was  raining,  so  I  did  not  go. 

This  sentence  is  neither  compound  nor  complex.  You  should 
make  the  clauses  clearly  coordinate,  or  should  subordinate 
one  to  the  other  according  to  the  emphasis  that  you  desire. 
The  following  are  all  correct: 


THE  SENTENCE  85 

As  it  was  raining  I  did  not  go  (complex). 
It  was  raining  so  that  I  did  not  go  (complex). 
It  was  raining;  and  so  I  did  not  go  (compound). 

The  so-sentence  is  a  slipshod  avoidance  of  responsibility,  and 
should  be  shunned  entirely. 

There  is  theoretically  no  limit  to  the  number  of  subordinate 
clauses  that  may  be  introduced  into  a  complex  sentence: 

That  the  woman  who  lost  all  the  money  she  had  in  the  world  could  not 
remember  whai  the  denominations  of  the  bills  were  is  a  pity,  because 
the  man  who  found  the  amount  she  said  she.  had  lost  was  willing  that 
she  should  have  it  if  she  could  prove  that  she  had  passed  near  the  place 
where  he  found  it  and  could  identify  the  bills  that  he  had  found. 

Only  three  words — the  predicate  is  a  pity — stand  outside 
a  subordinate  clause.  This  sentence  is  unbearably  clumsy. 
It  can  be  improved  by  introducing  phrases  here  and  there. 
It  does  not,  however,  commit  the  most  serious  fault  in  sub- 
ordination, which  is  the  use  of  the  same  connective  words  to 
introduce  clauses  of  different  degrees  of  subordination;  that 
is,  clauses  that  are  structural  elements  in  the  principal  clauses, 
and  clauses  that  modify  subordinate  clauses,  thus: 

This  is  the  man  wJto  captured  a  spy  who  was  disguised  as  a  woman 
who  was  driving  an  ambulance. 

This  House-that-Jack-built  type  of  sentence  should  be  care- 
fully avoided.  If  the  most  important  idea  next  to  that  of  the 
principal  clause  is  expressed  as  a  subordinate  clause,  all  the 
ideas  that  are  still  more  subordinate  should  be  reduced  to 
phrases  or  words,  if  possible.  Note  the  gain  in  clearness  and 
compactness : 

This  is  the  man  who  captured  a  spy  disguised  as  a  woman  ambu- 
lance driver. 

In  general,  guard  against  too  many  subordinate  clauses. 
Make  sure  that  your  most  important  idea  is  contained  in  the 
principal  clause,  and  keep  as  subordinate  clauses  only  such 
modifying  ideas  as  do  not  easily  and  naturally  reduce  to 
phrases  or  words. 


86  THE  WRITING  OF  ENGLISH 

2.  Subordinate  clauses  that  have  the  same  function  in  the 
sentence  must  be  constructed  on  the  same  plan;  that  is,  if 
they  modify  in  the  same  way  the  same  word,  or  words  in 
parallel  construction,  they  must  be  introduced  by  the  same 
connective — and  this  repeated  for  the  sake  of  clearness — 
with  their  structural  elements  in  the  same  order: 

When  we  have  levelled  overwhelming  disparities  of  wealth,  when 
we  have  opened  the  door  of  opportunity  to  every  human  creature, 
when  we  have  eliminated  ideals  of  aggrandizing  the  unit-man  at 
the  expense  of  the  whole — then  we  are  at  the  beginning  of  the 
problems  of  socialism. 

The  punctuation  of  the  subordinate  clause  depends  upon 
its  function  in  the  sentence.  As  substantive  subject  or  object 
it  should  follow  the  rule  for  single-word  substantives,  and 
should  not  be  separated  from  the  verb  by  a  comma.  Such 
a  comma  interrupts  the  movement  of  the  thought: 

That  he  is  so  weak  is  a  pity. 
It  is  a  pity  that  he  is  so  weak. 
We  heard  that  they  had  gone. 
He  asked  where  you  were. 

Some  writers  insert  a  comma  after  a  subject  clause  of 
great  length,  and  after  one  ending  in  the  same  verb  as  the 
predicate;  but  the  comma  is  not  necessary  in  either  case: 

Who  laughs  laughs  at  his  peril. 

The  substantive  clause  in  apposition,  however,  following 
the  rule  for  appositives,  should  always  be  set  off  by  commas : 

This  news,  that  he  was  a  prisoner,  was  the  first  word  that  we  had 
had  of  him  for  months. 

Sometimes,  when  the  clause  demands  greater  emphasis 
than  is  shown  by  commas,  it  is  set  off  between  dashes : 

This  fact — that  he  had  been  shot  as  a  deserter — was  known  to  very 
few. 

Adjective  clauses  and  adverbial  clauses  may  be  used  as 
essential  or  non-essential  modifiers.  When  a  clause  is  an 


THE  SENTENCE  87 

essential  modifier  (adjective  or  adverb),  it  must  be  kept  as 
close  as  possible  to  the  word  that  it  modifies  and  must  not 
be  punctuated: 

The  gipsy  who  spoke  English  told  my  fortune. 
I  am  always  happy  while  I  am  working. 
I  looked  where  you  told  me  to  look. 
You  cannot  go  if  you  are  angry. 

The  non-essential  adjective  clause  as  a  rule  also  follows 
the  noun  that  it  modifies;  but  it  must  be  separated  from  this 
by  a  comma.  Like  an  appositive  word  or  phrase,  it  is  paren- 
thetical and  explanatory  in  function,  and  can  be  omitted, 
leaving  the  sentence  less  detailed  but  complete  in  sense: 

This  man,  who  is  a  Frenchman  from  Algiers,  can  be  identified  by  a 
crescent-shaped  scar  on  his  chin. 

The  position  of  the  non-essential  adverbial  clause  in  the 
sentence  may  be  varied  according  to  the  emphasis  desired 
for  it.  When  it  stands  between  the  subject  and  the  predicate, 
it  follows  the  rule  for  inclosing  between  commas  any  mod- 
ifier that  interrupts  the  predication: 

Angry  justice  had,  as  it  were,  photographed  him  in  the  act  of  his 
homicide. 

When  the  non-essential  clause  comes  last  in  the  sentence, 
it  is  usually  set  off  by  a  comma  only  when  it  might  be  wrongly 
taken  as  an  essential  clause: 

He  went  down  to  the  cabin,  where  he  lit  a  pipe  and  read  for  an  hour. 

When  the  non-essential  clause  stands  first  in  the  sentence, 
it  must  always  be  set  off  by  a  comma  if  it  might  otherwise 
introduce  even  a  momentary  doubt  as  to  the  beginning  of 
the  subject,  or  if  its  idea  calls  for  special  emphasis.  But 
when  it  is  short  and  of  little  importance,  no  comma  is  needed. 
Compare  the  following  sentences: 

After  the  door  was  closed  and  locked,  Dulcie  fell  upon  her  bed, 
crushing  the  black  tip,  and  cried  for  ten  minutes. 


88  THE  WRITING  OF  ENGLISH 

When  her  cry  was  over  Dulcie  got  up  and  took  off  her  best  dress, 
and  put  on  her  old  blue  kimono. — 0.  Henry. 

To  distinguish  between  an  essential  and  a  non-essential 
clause,  you  have  only  to  ask  yourself:  Is  it  necessary  to  iden- 
tify the  person  or  thing  named  by  the  substantive,  or  is  that 
person  or  thing  already  identified,  and  the  clause  added 
merely  as  an  additional  detail?  Thus:  in  the  sentence  "The 
gipsy,  who  spoke  English,  told  my  fortune,"  I  already  have 
in  mind  a  particular  gipsy,  and  add  merely  as  an  additional 
detail  the  fact  that  she  spoke  English;  the  clause  is  non- 
essential,  and  must  be  set  off  by  commas.  But  in  the  sentence 
"The  gipsy  who  spoke  English  told  my  fortune,"  one  gipsy 
among  several  is  identified  by  her  speaking  of  English;  con- 
sequently, the  clause  is  essential,  and  no  commas  must  be 
used. 

3.  In  the  arrangement  of  subordinate  clauses  there  are 
two  principles  to  remember: 

(1)  If  they  are  parallel  in  construction,  they  must  stand  in 
some  definite  order,  of  which  the  commonest  are  climax  and 
contrast: 

Climax: 

When  the  generation  is  gone,  when  the  play  is  over,  when  the  thirty 
years'  panorama  has  been  withdrawn  in  tatters  from  the  stage  of  the 
world,  we  may  ask  what  has  become  of  these  great,  weighty,  and 
undying  loves,  and  the  sweethearts  who  despised  mortal  conditions 
in  a  fine  credulity.  .  .  . — Stevenson. 

Contrast: 

And  it  is  more  important  that  a  person  should  be  a  good  gossip, 
and,  talk  pleasantly  and  smartly  of  common  friends  and  the  thousand 
and  one  nothings  of  the  day  and  hour,  than  that  she  should  speak  with 
the  tongues  of  men  and  angels;  for  a  while  together  by  the  fire  hap- 
pens more  frequently  in  marriage  than  the  presence  of  a  distin- 
guished foreigner  to  dinner. — Stevenson. 

(2)  If  the  clauses  are  not  parallel,  they  should  be  distrib- 
uted through  the  sentence — not  all  before  the  subject,  or  after 


THE  SENTENCE  89 

the  predicate,  but  before,  and  after,  and  between  subject 
and  predicate,  so  that  the  exact  relationship  and  degree  of 
emphasis  belonging  to  each  will  at  once  be  clear. 

For  examples  of  this  careful  placing  of  subordinate  clauses, 
see  the  passages  quoted  on  pp.  62f.  and  75. 

In  general,  complex  and  compound-complex  sentences 
should  be  preferred  to  the  compound,  both  for  the  sake  of 
the  greater  variety  that  they  give,  and — what  is  still  more 
important — for  the  practice  that  they  afford  in  shading 
emphasis  to  match  the  relative  importance  and  unimportance 
of  different  phases  of  thought.  Indeed,  the  compound- 
complex  sentence — the  compound  sentence  with  one  or  more 
subordinate  clause  modifiers — combines  the  virtues  of  both 
the  other  types  and  is  one  of  the  commonest  in  actual  use, 
as  you  will  find  by  observation  of  any  good  piece  of  prose. 

ASSIGNMENT 

1.  Name  and  explain  the  structure  of  each  of  the  following  sen- 
tences and  the  arrangement  of  the  subordinate  clauses;  and  then 
explain  its  punctuation: 

(1)  "All  night  long  he  can  hear  Nature  breathing  deeply  and 
freely;  even  as  she  takes  her  rest  she  turns  and  smiles;  and  there  is 
one  stirring  hour  unknown  to  those  who  dwell  in  houses,  when  a 
wakeful  influence  goes  abroad  over  the  sleeping  hemisphere,  and 
all  the  outdoor  world  are  on  their  feet." — Stevenson. 

(2)  "Out  in  the  orchard  a  heavy  mist  wrapped  him  in  wet  folds 
of  silver;  yet  overhead  there  was  clear  starlight,  and  he  could  watch 
the  slow  burnishing  of  the  moon's  face  in  her  voyage  up  the  sky. 
It  was  a  queer  country  in  which  he  found  himself,  where  all  the 
tree-tops  seemed  to  be  floating  away  from  invisible  trunks,  and 
where  for  a  while  no  sound  was  audible  but  his  own  footsteps  making 
a  sound  almost  of  violins  in  the  saturated  grass.    The  moon  wrought 
upon  the  vapors  a  shifting  damascene  and  far  behind,  as  it  seemed, 
a  rufous  stain  showed  where  the  candles  in  his  room  were  still 
alight.    Gradually  a  variety  of  sounds  began  to  play  upon  the  silence. 
He  could  hear  the  dry  squeak  of  a  bat  and  cows  munching  in  the 
meadows  on  the  other  side  of  the  stream.    The  stream  itself  babbled 
and  was  still,  babbled  and  was  still;  while  along  the  bank  voles 
were  taking  the  water  with  splashes  that  went  up  and  down  a  scale 
like  the  deep  notes  of  a  dulcimer." — Compton  MacKenzie. 


90  THE  WRITING  OF  ENGLISH 

(3)  "Mottram   of   the   Indian   Survey   had   ridden   thirty  and 
railed  one  hundred  miles  from  his  lonely  post  in  the  desert  since 
the  night  before;  Lowndes  of  the  Civil  Service,  on  special  duty  in 
the  political  department,  had  come  as  far  to  escape  for  an  instant 
the  miserable  intrigues  of  an  impoverished  native  State  whose 
king  alternately  fawned  and  blustered  for  more  money  from  the 
pitiful  revenues  contributed  by  hard-wrung  peasants  and  despair- 
ing camel-drivers;  Spurstow,  the  doctor  of  the  line,  had  left  a 
cholera  stricken  camp  of  coolies  to  look  after  itself  for  forty-eight 
hours  while  he  associated  with  white  men  once  more.     Hummil, 
the  assistant  engineer,  was  the  host." — Kipling. 

(4)  "Very  simple  indeed  were  the  tunes  to  which  Mottram's 
art  and  the  limitations  of  the  piano  could  give  effect,  but  the  men 
listened  with  pleasure,  and  in  the  pauses  talked  of  what  they  had 
seen  or  heard  when  they  were  last  at  home.    A  dense  dust-storm 
sprung  up  outside,  and  swept  roaring  over  the  house,  enveloping 
it  in  the  choking  darkness  of  midnight,  but  Mottram  continued 
unheeding,  and  the  crazy  tinkle  reached  the  ears  of  the  listeners 
above  the  flapping  of  the  tattered  ceiling-cloth." — Kipling. 

2.  Rewrite  the  following  sentences,  using  simple  and  complex 
sentences  wherever  you  can: 

"Then  Sir  Bedivere  returned  again,  and  took  the  sword  in  his 
hand,  and  then  he  thought  it  a  sin  and  shame  to  throw  away  that 
noble  sword;  and  so  again  he  hid  the  sword,  and  returned  again  and 
told  the  king.  .  .  .  Then  Sir  Bedivere  departed,  and  went  to  the 
sword,  and  lightly  took  it  up,  and  went  to  the  water  side,  and  there 
he  bound  the  girdle  about  the  hilt,  and  then  he  threw  the  sword  far 
into  the  water.  And  there  came  an  arm  and  a  hand  above  the 
water  and  met  it,  and  caught  it,  and  so  shook  it  thrice  and  brand- 
ished; and  then  vanished  away  the  hand  with  the  sword  in  the 
water." — Sir  Thomas  Malory. 

3.  In  the  passages  on  p.  169  of  this  book  convert  the  compound 
sentences  into  complex  and  vice  versa,  whenever  you  can  do  so 
without  spoiling  the  effect.     How  many  sentences  of  either  kind  do 
you  find  which  are  not  easily  convertible  into  the  other  type? 

4.  Using  the  same  passage,  reduce  both  compound  and  complex 
sentences  to  simple  sentences  with  phrase  modifiers,  whenever  it  is 
possible  to  do  so,  and  decide  in  each  case  which  form  gives  the  best 
effect,  and  how  the  use  of  each  of  the  others  changes  the  effect. 

8.  PHRASES 

Few  persons  except  writers  of  much  experience  realize  the 
important  part  played  by  the  phrase  in  the  building  of  the 


THE  SENTENCE  91 

sentence.  To  gain  some  idea  of  the  number  and  variety  of 
phrases  and  of  their  structural  functions,  read  carefully  the 
following  paragraph  in  which  all  the  phrases  are  in  italics : 

The  country,  as  I  have  said,  was  mixed  sand-hill  and  links; 
links  being  a  Scottish  name  for  sand  which  has  ceased  drifting  and 
become  more  or  less  solidly  covered  with  turf.  The  pavilion  stood 
on  an  even  space,  a  little  behind  it  the  wood  began  in  a  hedge  of  elders 
huddled  together  by  the  wind;  in  front,  a  few  tumbled  sand-hills  stood 
between  it  and  the  sea.  An  outcropping  of  rock  had  formed  a  bastion 
for  the  sand,  so  that  there  was  here  a  promontory  in  the  coast-line 
between  two  shallow  bays;  and  just  beyond  the  tides,  the  rock  again 
cropped  out  and  formed  an  islet  of  small  dimensions  but  strikingly 
designed.  The  quicksands  were  of  great  extent  at  low  water,  and  had 
an  infamous  reputation  in  the  country.  Close  in  shore,  between  the 
islet  and  the  promontory,  it  was  said  that  they  would  swallow  a  man 
in  four  minutes  and  a  half;  but  there  may  have  been  little  ground 
for  this  precision.  The  district  was  alive  with  rabbits,  and  haunted 
by  gulls  which  made  a  continual  piping  about  the  pavilion.  On  sum- 
mer days  the  outlook  was  bright  and  even  gladsome;  but  at  sundown 
in  September,  with  a  high  wind,  and  a  heavy  surf  rolling  in  close  along 
the  links,  the  place  told  of  nothing  but  dead  mariners  and  sea  disasters. 
A  ship  beating  to  windward  on  the  horizon,  and  a  huge  truncheon  of 
wreck  half  buried  in  the  sands  at  my  feet,  completed  the  innuendo 
of  the  scene. — Stevenson. 

If  you  count  the  number  of  words  in  this  passage,  and 
then  count  the  number  in  phrases,  you  will  see  that  the  greater 
part  of  the  text  consists  of  phrases.  This  proportion  is  by 
no  means  unusual;  phrases  are  so  important  a  part  of  the 
structure  of  sentences  that  no  writing  can  be  made  effective 
without  proper  management  of  the  phrasing. 

If  you  do  not  remember  the  grammatical  structure  and 
functions  of  phrases  in  the  sentence,  review  them  in  Appendix 
VII  before  you  continue  the  study  of  this  section. 

In  connection  with  phrasing  there  are  three  main  prob- 
lems for  the  student : 

A.  The  close  weaving  together  of  simple  phrases  into  a 
composite,  to  secure  unified  impressions. 


92  THE  WRITING  OF  ENGLISH 

B.  The  distribution  and  punctuation  of  phrases,  to  shift 
emphasis  in  the  sentence. 

C.  The  choice  between  the  phrase  and  the  subordinate 
clause. 

A.  The  Stevenson  passage  contains  admirable  examples  of 
close   weaving   of   phrases.      For   instance,    the   composite 
phrase  "in  a  hedge  of  elders  huddled  together  by  the  wind" 
contains  four  simple  phrases  in  its  ten  words;  the  clause  be- 
ginning "but  at  sundown"  consists  of  thirty  words,  of  which 
only  four  are  not  woven  into  phrases.    In  this  close  knitting, 
prepositional  and  participial  phrases,  phrases  used  as  ad- 
jectives and  as  adverbs,  are  so  neatly  bound  together  that 
only  by  analysis  do  we  realize  in  many  cases  the  composite 
character  of  the  whole.     Study  of  the  practice  of  an  author 
who  is  particularly  neat  and  careful  about  his  phrasing — 
and  for  this  quality  Stevenson  is  preeminent — will  do  much 
to  correct  a  loose-jointed  and  awkward  style. 

B.  When,  instead  of  a  composite  phrase  conveying  a  single 
impression,  you  wish  to  use  a  group  of  simple  phrases,  each 
conveying  a  distinct  and  independent  impression,  your  prob- 
lem is  not  to  find  phrases  that  will  weld  together  without 
showing  joints,  but  to  place  each  phrase  where  it  will  get  the 
right  degree  of  emphasis,  and  to  punctuate  it  so  that  its  rela- 
tionship and  force  will  be  unmistakable. 

Your  first  step  must  be  to  note  whether  your  phrase  is 
an  essential  or  a  non-essential  modifier.  If  it  is  essential,  it 
must  be  kept  close  to  the  word  that  it  modifies,  and  not 
separated  from  it  by  a  comma: 

an  islet  of  small  dimensions  but  strikingly  designed 

But  if  it  is  non-essential,  it  may  be  placed  almost  anywhere 
in  the  sentence,  according  to  the  emphasis  desired,  provided 
that  its  relationship,  with  or  without  the  aid  of  punctuation, 
is  kept  perfectly  clear. 

The  chief  difficulty  is  in  the  placing  of  adverbial  phrases. 


THE  SENTENCE  93 

Adjective  phrases,  like  single  adjectives,  even  when  they  are 
non-essential,  do  not  usually  get  away  from  the  noun  that 
they  modify.  For  the  placing  of  adverbial  phrases  there  are 
perhaps  two  general  rules: 

1.  Do  not  group  them  together  in  such  a  way  that  in  part 
of  the  sentence  the  mind  will  be  overloaded  with  a  group  of 
distinct  and  unrelated  modifiers,  while  in  another  part  it 
finds  no  modifiers.  If  you  have  several  phrases,  distribute 
them — at  the  beginning,  in  the  middle,  and  at  the  end — so 
that  each  has  time  to  convey  its  idea  before  the  next  is 
reached,  and  the  sentence  as  a  whole  shows  an  approximate 
balance  of  weight  between  its  beginning  and  its  end. 

Close  in  shore, 


|  it  was  said  that  they j  in  four  minutes 

1  would  swallow  a  man ....  1  and  a  half. 


between  the  is- 
let and  the 
promontory, 

The  balance  is  evident.  Try  the  effect  of  placing  the  last 
phrase  immediately  after  promontory.  And  quite  apart  from 
the  desirability  of  balance,  the  emphasis  here  is  on  the  short- 
ness of  the  time,  which  is  therefore  placed  last.  This  brings 
us  to  the  second  rule. 

2.  For  emphasis,  place  the  phrase  as  follows: 

(1)  Last,  when  it  is  to  bear  the  greatest  emphasis  of  any 
part  of  the  sentence: 

The  outlook  was  bright  and  even  gladsome  on  summer  days. 

(2)  First,  when  it  serves  as  a  good  introduction  to  the  sen- 
tence, or,  it  may  be,  a  transition  from  the  preceding  sentence: 

The  outlook  was  bright  in  summer.    But  during  a  winter  storm 
it  chilled  the  heart. 

(3)  Neither  first  nor  last,  but  at  the  most  convenient  place 
within  the  sentence,  when  it  bears  no  special  stress: 

The  outlook,  to  one  returning  after  a  long  absence,  seemed  dreary. 
If  you  remember  these  two  points,  distribution  of  non- 


94  THE  WRITING  OF  ENGLISH 

essential  adverbial  phrases  for  securing  balance  in  the  whole 
sentence,  and  the  proper  emphasis  due  to  each  phrase,  you 
will  soon  gain  a  degree  of  ease  and  mastery  in  the  manage- 
ment of  your  phrases. 

C.  The  rule  for  choice  between  the  phrase  and  the  subor- 
dinate clause  is  simple:  Prefer  the  phrase;  it  is  more  compact 
and  usually  more  emphatic.  Compare  the  following: 

He  is  a  man  who  has  great  wealth. 

He  is  a  man  of  great  wealth. 

If  this  is  understood,  we  may  come  to  terms. 

This  understood,  we  may  come  to  terms. 

Almost  any  relationship  expressed  by  the  subordinate 
clause — time,  place,  cause,  condition,  concession,  purpose, 
result,  comparison — may  be  expressed  by  the  phrase;  the 
clause  should  be  reserved  for  two  cases: 

1.  When  the  exact  nature  of  the  relationship  is  important 
and  cannot  be  so  clearly  expressed  by  a  phrase: 

Throughout  this  period  of  restraint  he  worked  well. 
The  meaning  is  ambiguous,  but  is  made  clear  by  a  clause: 

Because  he  was  under  restraint,  for  a  time  he  worked  well. 
Although  he  was  under  restraint  for  a  time,  he  worked  well. 

2.  When  there  is  emphasis  on  the  predication  itself: 
He  is  a  man  who  ought  to  succeed 

is  stronger  than 

He  is  a  man  likely  to  succeed. 

In  punctuating  these  distributed  phrases,  remember  that 
every  non-essential  modifier,  and  every  independent  element 
that  modifies  the  sentence  as  a  whole,  must  be  set  off  by  com- 
mas; also,  that  any  element  which  is  especially  emphatic  may 
likewise  be  set  off.  When  a  phrase  follows  the  predicate  verb, 
it  is  less  likely  to  need  commas,  except  for  reasons  of  emphasis, 
than  when  it  precedes  the  subject  or  stands  between  subject 
and  predicate.  When  it  precedes  the  subject,  it  must  be 
followed  by  a  comma  whenever  it  introduces  even  momen- 


THE  SENTENCE  95 

tary  doubt  as  to  where  the  subject  begins;  it  may  be  fol- 
lowed by  a  comma  if  it  is  loosely  connected  or  especially 
emphatic.  Thus : 

According  to  Henry  Parker  was  not  at  home 

introduces  a  momentary  doubt:  until  was  is  read,  we  are  not 
sure  that  Henry  does  not  belong  with  Parker.  So  we  must 
punctuate: 

According  to  Henry,  Parker  was  not  at  home. 

Again,  there  is  a  decided  difference  in  emphasis  between  the 
following  sentences: 

All  last  summer  I  had  no  time  for  golf. 

Day  after  day,  I  have  tried  in  vain  to  make  time  for  golf. 

When  the  phrase  stands  between  subject  and  predicate, 
it  need  not  be  punctuated  if  it  is  short,  unemphatic,  and  does 
not  divert  the  trend  of  the  thought;  but  if  it  attracts  even 
momentary  attention  to  itself,  it  must  be  set  off  by  commas 
in  order  that  the  movement  of  the  sentence  may  pass  round 
it  from  subject  to  predicate : 

The  problem  to  my  thinking  is  not  insoluble. 
This  defeat,  according  to  the  explanations  of  the  routed  generals, 
counted  as  a  victory. 

In  regard  to  the  punctuation  of  these  movable  phrases 
you  will  find  wide  variation  in  practice  among  good  writers; 
but  if  you  bear  in  mind  two  points — the  need  for  perfect 
clearness  of  relationship  between  the  elements  of  the  sen- 
tence, and  the  use  of  the  single  comma  to  separate,  and  of 
two  commas  to  hold  together  the  words  between  them — you 
should  have  no  great  difficulty,  and  you  should  soon  begin  to 
establish  a  system  of  your  own. 

ASSIGNMENT 

1.  Analyze  as  to  structure  and  function  all  the  phrases  in  the 
passage  on  p.  65.  Change  as  many  of  the  phrases  as  you  can  into 
subordinate  clauses,  and  discuss  the  differences  in  effect.  Change 


96  THE  ENGLISH  OF  WRITING 

as  many  of  the  subordinate  clauses  as  you  can  into  phrases,  and 
discuss  the  differences  in  effect.  Copy  the  sentences  with  every  pos- 
sible change  in  the  arrangement  of  the  phrases,  and  decide  whether 
or  not  the  author  has  in  every  case  chosen  the  best  possible  order. 

2.  Copy  from  a  magazine  or  newspaper  twenty  or  more  sentences 
containing  subordinate  clauses  reducible  to  phrases.     Make  the 
reduction  in  writing,  and  decide  in  each  case  whether  or  not  it  is  an 
improvement. 

3.  From  a  similar  source  copy  twenty  sentences  in  which  you 
feel  that  the  phrases  are  not  in  the  best  order;  then  write  them  with 
your  changes. 

4.  Study  the  phrasing  in  the  quotation  on  p.  20  of  this  book. 

9.  COMPACTNESS 

A  well-built  sentence  is  one  in  which  every  word  is  needed 
exactly  where  it  stands  in  order  to  bring  out  the  thought 
with  the  degree  of  emphasis  and  emotion  desired  by  the 
writer  and  to  connect  this  thought  exactly  with  the  thoughts 
expressed  by  the  preceding  and  by  the  following  sentence. 
In  a  perfect  sentence  no  word  could  be  added  or  cut  out  or 
changed  in  position  without  obvious  injury.  The  essential 
qualities  here  suggested  are  compactness  and  clearness. 

To  realize  what  compact  structure  means,  compare  the 
following  sentences: 

In  an  individualist  democracy  no  tax  could  be  more  consistent 
with  the  ideals  and  purposes  of  the  nation  than  an  inheritance  tax 
which  should  tend  to  equalize  opportunity  from  generation  to  gen- 
eration and  compel  those  who  are  to  enjoy  unearned  power  and 
privilege  to  make  especial  contribution  to  the  common  need. 

How  interesting  it  is  to  see  all  the  great  men  of  the  land  come 
and  go  each  day — to  see  them  and  to  know  them  and  to  hear  them 
talk.  How  many  have  I  talked  to  myself  since  being  here  in  Wash- 
ington. There  were  so  many  I  could  not  begin  to  name  them  or 
put  down  what  they  say,  but  where  I  am  is  an  unrivalled  place  to 
meet  and  know  them,  and  yet  how  commonplace  many  of  them 
are  when  seen  at  close  quarters.  .  .  .  How  many  are  sort  of  freak- 
ish .  .  .  somehow  very  few  of  them  make  any  sort  of  an  impression 
on  me  and  I  wonder  why  it  is. 


THE  SENTENCE  97 

The  first  sentence  is  quoted  from  an  editorial;  it  is  com- 
pact and  clear.  The  second  passage  is  from  the  manuscript 
of  a  book  offered  for  publication;  about  one-third  of  it  could 
be  cut,  and  the  remaining  words  combined  in  this  manner: 

Here  in  Washington  I  have  an  unrivalled  opportunity  to  see, 
to  hear,  and  to  meet  daily  all  the  great  men  of  the  land.  I  cannot 
remember  even  their  names,  much  less  what  they  say.  Interesting 
as  the  experience  is,  the  men  are  curiously  commonplace,  or  even 
freakish.  I  wonder  why  so  few  of  them  impress  me. 

Now  let  us  consider  why  this  passage  can  be  cut  down  one- 
third  without  loss  of  an  idea  and  become  more  close-knit  in 
the  process.  What  are  the  main  defects  of  the  original  form? 

1.  It  shifts  the  subject  back  and  forth  between  many  and 
7,  thus  requiring  a  perpetual  repetition  of  the  verb. 

2.  It  repeats  the  same    words    and  synonymous  words 
merely  because  the  writer  does  not  combine  all  the  related 
phases  of  the  thought,  and  say  once  for  all :  see,  meet,  etc. 

3.  It  uses  words  to  convey  ideas  which  are  perfectly  clear 
from  the  context,  and  which  therefore  merely  dilute  the 
sentence :  come  and  go,  talk,  myself,  since  being,  begin  to,  where 
I  am,  of  them,  when,  sort  of,  any  sort  of  an  .  .  .  on,  it  is,  etc. 

4.  It  makes  little  attempt  to  subordinate  unimportant 
phases  of  the  thought — none  to  eliminate  predication;  but 
runs  along  in  the  infantile  form  of  a  string  of  compound 
sentences. 

5.  It  uses  the  exclamatory  and  the  declarative  forms  of 
predication  in  the  same  sentence. 

From  this  study  we  may  educe  the  following  rules: 

1.  Shift  your  subject  as  little  as  possible  within  the  sen- 
tence, or  in  a  closely  connected  group  of  sentences.    By  keep- 
ing the  same  point  of  view,  you  unify  your  subject-matter, 
you  avoid  waste  of  attention,  and  you  get  a  close-knit  sen- 
tence to  correspond  to  your  unified  thought. 

2.  Avoid  repetitions  that  are  nothing  more  than  repeti- 
tions.   Either  concentrate  on  a  word  and  make  it  do  duty 


98  THE  WRITING  OF  ENGLISH 

once  for  all  in  a  given  passage;  or  if  you  wish  to  repeat,  place 
the  repeated  word  in  such  an  emphatic  position  that  the 
reader  sees  the  emphasis  at  once : 

And  yet  the  place  establishes  an  interest  in  people's  hearts;  go 
where  they  will,  they  find  no  city  of  the  same  distinction;  go  where 
they  tvill,  they  take  a  pride  in  their  old  home. — Stevenson. 

This,  as  you  see,  is  done  by  the  use  of  parallel  structure  in 
which  the  repeated  word  has  each  time  the  same  emphatic 
position. 

For  effective  repetition  of  a  word  see  Kipling's  digging  and 
digged  (for  dug)  on  p.  186. 

Experienced  writers  often  repeat  the  same  thought  in 
different  words;  but  the  student  should  do  this  only  when  it 
is  necessary  to  drive  home  an  idea  with  great  force  because 
it  is  complex,  or  obscure,  or  for  some  other  reason  hard  to 
grasp.  In  such  a  case,  the  repetitions  should  be  as  varied  as 
possible — affirmative  and  negative,  literal  and  figurative — 
and  arranged  in  the  order  of  climax.  For  good  examples, 
see  pp.  81  and  88. 

3.  Watch  for  and  rigorously  cut  out  all  words  that  neither 
contribute  to  the  ideas  nor  serve  to  connect  them. 

4.  Be  on  the  alert  to  subordinate  unimportant  ideas;  and 
remember    to    reduce — even    eliminate — predication    when- 
ever it  is  not  needed  for  emphasis. 

5.  Never  use  the  exclamatory  sentence  unless  your  emo- 
tion is  essential.    And  when  you  feel  that  you  must  use  it, 
never  try  to  combine  it  with  the  declarative  or  the  interrog- 
ative form.    You  will  get  better  structure  and  more  emotional 
stress  if  you  make  it  stand  alone. 

As  you  practise  the  organization  of  sentences  with  a  view 
to  fitting  them  compactly  to  the  thought  that  they  contain, 
you  should  observe  that  there  are  two  general  methods  of 
articulation  which  are  used  separately  and  in  combination. 

You  may  let  each  phase  of  the  thought  grow  naturally  out 
of  the  one  before  it  in  a  gradual  and  continuous  process  which 


THE  SENTENCE  99 

may  be  stopped  at  various  points  before  the  end  of  the  sen- 
tence is  reached.  At  the  first  stopping-point  you  will  have 
a  clearly  unified  impression,  to  which  each  later  stopping- 
point  will  merely  add  detail.  In  the  following  sentence,  there 
are  six  stopping-points — indicated  by  double  spacing — be- 
fore that  chosen  by  the  author  is  reached: 

In  the  hurry  I  could  just  see  Smethurst,         red  and  panting, 
thrust  a  couple  of  clay  pipes  into  my  companion's  outstretched 
hand,         and  hear  him  crying  his  farewells         after  us         as  we 
slipped  out  of  the  station        at  an  ever-accelerating  pace. 

— Stevenson. 

This  type  of  sentence  is  called  loose. 

On  the  other  hand,  you  may  develop  your  thought  by  keep- 
ing back  until  the  very  end  one  element  of  the  sentence  which 
is  absolutely  essential  to  a  correct  understanding  of  the 
whole.  In  this  way  your  reader  is  forced  to  hold  in  suspense 
in  his  mind  all  that  precedes  this  important  element,  in  order 
that  when  he  comes  to  it  he  shall  see  it  in  its  right  relations 
to  all  the  parts  that  have  preceded  it.  This  type  of  sentence 
cannot  be  broken  off  before  the  end  is  reached: 

Such  a  description,  composed  from  scanty  and  dispersed  materials, 
must  necessarily  be  very  imperfect. 

You  cannot  stop  before  imperfect  and  make  sense. 

Again:  Of  these  three  estimates,  framed  without  concert  by  dif- 
ferent persons  from  different  sets  of  materials,  the  highest,  which 
is  that  of  King,  does  not  exceed  the  lowest,  which  is  that  of  Finlaison, 
by  one-twelfth. — Macatday. 

Here  you  cannot  stop  before  twelfth  because  the  degree  of 
difference  is  the  very  point  of  the  sentence. 

This  type  of  sentence  is  called  periodic. 

Qne  of  the  most  important  problems  for  the  writer  is  so  to 
alternate  progression  and  suspense  in  the  movement  of  his 
sentences,  and  within  the  parts  of  a  single  sentence,  that  the 
reader  is  alternately  stimulated  into  sharp  attention  and 


100  THE  WRITING  OF  ENGLISH 

allowed  to  drift  for  a  moment's  rest  while  the  thought  con- 
tinues without  effort  on  his  part. 

But  whether  your  sentence  be  loose  or  periodic,  progressive 
or  suspended,  it  must  be  articulated  to  fit  the  thought  exactly, 
without  superfluity  of  words  or  extraneous  ideas,  and  without 
incompleteness,  and  to  give  the  degree  of  emphasis  that 
exists  in  your  mind  with  reference  to  every  phase  of  the 
thought  that  you  are  organizing  into  one  sentence. 

ASSIGNMENT 

1.  Study  the  sentences  on  p.  180  of  this  book  from  the  point  of 
view  of  compactness  of  structure.    Suggest  improvements  wherever 
you  can. 

2.  Note  the  sentences  in  this  same  passage  which  are  entirely 
loose  or  progressive,  and  those  which  are  entirely  periodic  or  sus- 
pended.   Analyze  the  elements  of  suspense  which  you  find  in  the 
sentences  in  which  both  methods  of  development  appear.    When- 
ever it  is  possible  to  change  from  the  one  type  to  the  other,  do  so, 
and  discuss  differences  in  effect. 

3.  Take  two  pages  of  any  article  in  a  good  magazine  and  study 
the  sentences  in  the  same  way. 

10.  CLEARNESS 

The  simplest  requisite  for  perfect  clearness  in  the  construc- 
tion of  any  sentence  is  grammatical  correctness.  It  would 
seem  reasonable  to  assume  that  college  students  write  sen- 
tences which  are  grammatically  correct;  but  experience 
shows  that  this  is  not  invariably  the  case.  It  is  true,  how- 
ever, that  of  the  sentence  errors  listed  as  bad  English  in 
Appendix  VIII,  comparatively  few  are  made  habitually  by 
the  majority  of  students.  Each  student  has  his  own  list, 
which  varies  somewhat  from  that  of  every  other  student 
according  to  the  circumstances  of  his  birth  and  early  training. 
Foreign-born  students  have  their  special  problems;  students 
who  come  from  widely  differing  sections  of  this  country  and 
from  different  strata  of  society  have  theirs.  The  correction 


THE  SENTENCE  101 

of  these  errors  is  a  problem  purely  individual  and  personal, 
to  be  solved  by  individual  hard  work,  with  or  without  the 
guidance  of  a  tutor.  The  common  sources  of  confusion  of 
thought  in  the  sentence  are  placed  together  in  the  Appen- 
dix, where  it  is  hoped  each  student  can  find  what  he  needs. 
It  is  only  by  persistent  drill  that  weaknesses  can  be 
gradually  eliminated;  and  as  long  as  these  errors  persist,  hope 
of  achieving  distinction  in  the  use  of  English  must  remain 
distant. 

A  second  requisite  for  perfect  clearness  is  proper  arrange- 
ment of  parts  of  the  sentence,  with  proper  punctuation  to 
show  their  relationships  and  the  degree  of  emphasis  to  be 
accorded  to  each.  This  point  has  been  fully  discussed  in 
connection  with  each  type  of  sentence,  and  the  invariable 
rules  of  punctuation  have  been  given  in  the  earlier  section 
on  Good  Form.  But  as  a  guide  in  cases  of  doubt  we  have 
added  a  tabulation  of  the  uses  of  the  marks  in  Appendix  VI. 
By  reference  to  this  you  should  be  able  to  clarify  vague  im- 
pressions and  to  supplement  your  theory  when  necessary. 

A  third  requisite  for  perfect  clearness  is  the  mastery  of  the 
pronoun.  The  pronoun  is  one  of  the  most  convenient  parts 
of  speech  when  its  use  is  thoroughly  understood;  but  it  is  a 
double-edged  tool,  and  is  dangerous  when  it  is  not  turned 
in  the  right  way :  that  is,  so  that  its  reference  is  unmistakable. 
Aside  from  the  grammatical  rules  for  the  agreement  of  pro- 
nouns, the  principles  that  underlie  their  proper  use  are 
simple: 

1.  Keep  each  pronoun  in  the  sentence  as  near  as  possible  to 
its  antecedent.  This,  naturally,  involves  a  clear  understand- 
ing as  to  which  word  is  its  antecedent.  Note  the  confusion 
in  the  following: 

I  came  across  one  of  these  sparrow-tamers  by  chance,  and  was 
much  amused  at  the  scene,  which  to  anyone  not  acquainted  with 
birds,  appears  marvellous;  but  it  [what?]  is  really  as  simple  as  pos- 
sible, and  you  can  repeat  it  for  yourself  if  you  have  patience,  for 


102  THE  WRITING  OF  ENGLISH 

they  [the  tamers  or  the  birds?]  are  so  sharp  they  soon  understand 
you. 

2.  Never  allow  between  a  pronoun  and  its  antecedent  any 
substantive  that  might  be  mistaken  for  the  antecedent: 

In  the  heat  of  the  sun  the  furze-pods  kept  popping  and  bursting 
open;  they  are  often  as  full  of  insects  as  seeds,  which  come  creeping 
out. 

Obviously  it  is  the  insects  that  creep  out;  but  the  pronoun 
refers  to  seeds. 

3.  Never  use  a  pronoun  when  there  is  any  doubt  as  to 
which  of  two  or  more  substantives  is  its  antecedent.    When- 
ever there  is  room  for  doubt,  either  repeat  the  substantive, 
or  if,  as  is  often  the  case,  the  difficulty  occurs  in  indirect 
discourse,  rewrite  the  passage  as  a  direct  quotation: 

As  Smith  and  Brown  walked  home,  he  [which?]  began  to  talk 
of  his  [whose?]  troubles. 

This  is  made  unmistakable  as  follows: 

As  Smith  and  Brown  walked  home,  (  Smith  b  Jk    f  ^ 

troubles.  1  Brown     ' 

Or: 

As  Smith  and  Brown  walked  home,  {  Smith    b  tQ   ^   of 

Brown  s  .       ,  ,  I  Brown 

ic-    -ii»      troubles. 
[  Smith  s 

Smith  told  Brown  that  his  [whose?]  invention  would  bring  him 
[whom?]  good  returns. 

Here  the  meaning  is  quite  obscure,  but  is  clarified  at  once  by 
the  use  of  quotation: 

Smith  said  to  Brown,  "My    invention  will  bring  me  good  returns." 
My  '     you 

Your         "  "       "    me       "        " 

Your         "  "       "     you      "         " 

For  particular  errors  in  the  use  of  pronouns,  see  Appen- 
dix VIII. 

4.  Always  be  sure  that  the  antecedent  of  a  pronoun  is 
definitely  expressed  as  a  substantive: 


THE  SENTENCE  103 

Hattie  had  been  shut  up  in  the  house  for  so  many  hours  that 
she  suddenly  discovered  that  she  could  not  bear  it  [what?]  another 
minute. 

5.  Another  aid  to  clearness  is  parallelism.  But  it  must  be 
used  consistently;  that  is,  it  must  put  into  the  same  con- 
struction and  coordinate  only  such  ideas  as  really  have  the 
same  function  and  the  same  importance  in  the  sentence. 

The  most  important  rule  for  parallelism  is  that  the  parallel 
elements  should  be  in  precisely  the  same  form.  Do  not 
coordinate: 

(1)  Infinitive  and  gerund: 

To  study  and  walking  are  my  chief  pleasures. 

(2)  Infinitive  and  finite  verb. 

He  said  to  go  and  that  he  would  join  us  later. 

(3)  Active  and  passive  voice: 

The  club  met  at  Mrs.  Johnson's,  and  a  delightful  time  was  had 
by  all. 

(4)  A  word  or  a  phrase  and  a  clause: 

He  urged  haste  and  that  a  committee  be  appointed. 

He  asked  for  help  to  be  given  them,  and  that  it  be  done  quickly. 

Another  important  rule  is  that  when  phrases  or  subordinate 
clauses  are  made  parallel,  the  introductory  word — preposi- 
tion, participle,  or  conjunction — should,  as  a  rule,  be  re- 
peated before  each  in  order  to  show  the  parallelism  at  a 
glance: 

In  my  mind  is  a  jumbled  vision  of  huge  wooden  cows  cut  out  in 
profile  and  offering  from  dry  udders  a  fibrous  milk;  of  tins  of  bis- 
cuits portrayed  with  a  ghastly  realism  of  perspective,  and  menda- 
ciously screaming  that  I  needed  them — U-need-a-biscuit;  of  gigantic 
quakers,  multipled  as  in  an  interminable  series  of  mirrors,  and  offer- 
ing me  a  myriad  meals  of  indigestible  oats;  of  huge,  painted  bulls 
in  a  kind  of  discontinuous  frieze  bellowing  to  the  heavens  a  chal- 
lenge to  produce  a  better  tobacco  than  theirs;  of  the  head  of  a 
gentleman,  with  pink  cheeks  and  a  black  moustache,  recurring, 


104  THE  WRITING  OF  ENGLISH 

like  a  decimal,  ad  infinitum  on  the  top  of  a  board,  to  inform  me  that 
his  beauty  is  the  product  of  his  own  toilet  powder;  of  codfish  with- 
out bones — "the  kind  you  have  always  bought";  of  bacon  packed 
in  glass  jars;  of  whiz  suspenders,  sen-sen  throat-ease,  sure-fit  hose, 
and  the  whole  army  of  patent  medicines. — G.  Lowes  Dickinson. 

Note  that  the  of  is  repeated  seven  times,  and  then  in  the  last 
phrase,  where  a  number  of  incongruous  things  are  crowded 
together  for  purposes  of  humor,  it  is  omitted. 

To  be  effective,  parallel  constructions  should  be  arranged 
in  the  order  of  climax: 

There  is  one  pursuit,  commerce;  one  type,  the  business  man; 
one  ideal,  that  of  increasing  wealth.  Monotony  of  talk,  monotony 
of  ideas,  monotony  of  aim,  monotony  of  outlook  on  the  world. 

— G.  Lowes  Dickinson. 

A  special  type  of  parallelism  is  the  balanced  sentence — the 
arrangement  of  coordinate  clauses  in  pairs,  so  that  one  will 
offset  the  other.  This  is  commonly,  though  not  necessarily, 
combined  with  the  figure  of  antithesis,  or  contrast  of  ideas. 

Mr.  Lowes  Dickinson  has  a  chapter  in  his  Appearances 
in  which  most  of  the  sentences  are  constructed  on  this  plan. 
He  is  making  a  series  of  distinctions  between  the  man  of 
action  and  the  dreamer  (the  Red-blood  and  the  Mollycoddle; 
note  the  figure  in  the  names).  The  following  extract  is 
characteristic: 

The  Red-blood  sees  nothing;  but  the  Mollycoddle  sees  through 
everything.  The  Red-blood  joins  societies;  the  Mollycoddle  is  a 
non-joiner.  (Individualist  of  individualists,  he  can  only  stand 
alone,  while  the  Red-blood  requires  the  support  of  a  crowd.)  The 
Mollycoddle  engenders  ideas,  and  the  Red-blood  exploits  them. 
The  Mollycoddle  discovers,  and  the  Red-blood  invents.  The  whole 
structure  of  civilization  rests  on  foundations  laid  by  Mollycoddles; 
but  all  the  building  is  done  by  Red-bloods.  The  Red-blood  de- 
spises the  Mollycoddle;  but,  in  the  long  run,  he  does  what  the 
Mollycoddle  tells  him.  The  Mollycoddle  also  despises  the  Red- 
blood,  but  he  cannot  do  without  him.  Each  thinks  he  is  master 
of  the  other,  and,  in  a  sense,  each  is  right.  In  his  lifetime  the  Molly- 


THE  SENTENCE  105 

coddle  may  be  the  slave  of  the  Red-blood;  but  after  his  death,  he 
is  his  master,  though  the  Red-blood  know  it  not. 

In  this  passage  it  is  interesting  to  note  the  slight  variations 
in  form  by  which  monotony  is  avoided.  Without  such  varia- 
tions parallelism  quickly  becomes  tiresome.  It  should  not 
be  used  for  many  sentences  in  succession  except  by  writers 
who  know  how  to  secure  variety;  but  for  single  sentences 
involving  a  great  number  of  details  it  is  an  admirable  device 
for  clearness. 

ASSIGNMENT 

1.  Distribute  the  reading  of  Appendix  VIII  over  two  days,  check- 
ing in  your  book  faults  of  which  you  are  aware,  and  noting  the  cor- 
rections.   Then  examine  the  papers  that  you  have  written  thus  far 
this  year,  and  in  the  light  of  the  errors  that  you  find  in  them,  add 
more  checks,  at  the  same  time  correcting  the  error  in  each  case,  if 
this  has  not  been  done  already. 

2.  Explain  the  use  of  punctuation  as  an  aid  to  clearness  in  the 
quotation  on  p.  103. 

3.  Criticize  the  following  passage  with  regard  to  its  sentences,  and 
experiment  with  different  punctuations: 

Again,  you  will  find,  if  you  travel  long  in  America,  that  you  are 
suffering  from  a  kind  of  atrophy.  You  will  not,  at  first,  realize  what 
it  means.  But  suddenly  it  will  flash  upon  you  that  you  are  suffering 
from  lack  of  conversation.  You  do  not  converse;  you  cannot;  you 
can  only  talk.  It  is  the  rarest  thing  to  meet  a  man  who,  when  a 
subject  is  started,  is  willing  or  able  to  follow  it  out  into  its  ramifica- 
tions, to  play  with  it,  to  embroider  it  with  pathos  or  with  wit,  to 
penetrate  to  its  roots,  to  trace  its  connections  and  affinities.  Ques- 
tion and  answer,  anecdote  and  jest,  are  the  staples  of  American 
conversation;  and  above  all,  information.  They  have  a  hunger  for 
positive  facts.  And  you  may  hear  them  hour  after  hour  rehearsing 
to  one  another  their  travels,  their  business  transactions,  their 
experiences  in  trains,  in  hotels,  on  steamers,  till  you  begin  to  feel 
you  have  no  alternatives  before  you  but  murder  or  suicide.  An 
American,  broadly  speaking,  never  detaches  himself  from  experi- 
ence. His  mind  is  embedded  in  it;  it  moves  wedged  in  fact.  His 
only  escape  is  into  humor;  and  even  his  humor  is  but  a  formula  of 
exaggeration.  It  implies  no  imagination,  no  real  envisaging  of  its 
object.  It  does  not  illuminate  a  subject;  it  extinguishes  it,  clamp- 
ing upon  every  topic  the  same  grotesque  mould.  That  is  why  it 


106  THE  WRITING  OF  ENGLISH 

does  not  amuse  the  English.    For  the  English  are  accustomed  to 
Shakspere  and  to  the  London  cabby. — G.  Lowes  Dickinson. 

4.  Insert  commas  and  semicolons  as  needed  in  the  following  sen- 
tences : 

The  soft  autumn  sunshine  shorn  of  summer  glare  lights  up  with 
color  the  ferns  the  fronds  of  which  are  yellow  and  brown  the  leaves 
.  the  grey  grass  and  hawthorn  sprays  already  turned. 

Like  the  fields  which  can  only  support  a  certain  proportion  of 
cattle  the  forest  wide  as  it  seems  can  only  maintain  a  certain  number 
of  deer.  [Place  only  in  its  correct  position  in  each  clause.] 

With  starlings  wood  pigeons  and  rooks  the  forest  is  crowded 
like  a  city  in  spring  but  now  in  autumn  it  is  comparatively  deserted. 
[Change  the  order  for  clearness  and  emphasis.] 

The  birds  are  away  in  the  fields  some  at  the  grain  others  watch- 
ing the  plow  and  following  it  as  soon  as  a  furrow  is  opened. 

If  timber  is  felled  it  is  removed  and  the  bark  and  boughs  with  it 
the  stump  too  is  grubbed  and  split  for  firewood. 

When  the  thickets  are  thinned  out  the  fagots  are  carted  away 
and  much  of  the  fern  is  also  removed. 

No  charcoal-burning  is  practised  but  the  mere  maintenance  of 
the  fences  as  for  instance  round  the  pheasant  enclosures  gives  much 
to  do. 

Beneath  the  ashes  of  the  first  frost  the  air  is  full  of  the  bitterness 
of  their  blackened  leaves  which  have  all  come  down  at  once. 

Next  came  a  moth  and  after  the  moth  a  golden  fly  and  three 
gnats  and  a  mouse  ran  along  the  dry  ground  with  a  curious  sniffling 
rustle  close  to  Guido. 

"Oh  no  dear  the  house  I  was  then  thinking  of  is  gone  like  a  leaf 
withered  and  lost." 

"The  dew  dries  very  soon  on  wheat  Guido  dear  because  wheat 
is  so  dry  first  the  sunrise  makes  the  tips  of  the  wheat  ever  so  faintly 
rosy  then  it  grows  yellow  then  as  the  heat  increases  it  becomes 
white  at  noon  and  golden  in  the  afternoon  and  white  again  under 
the  moonlight." 

"If  we  had  never  before  looked  upon  the  earth  but  suddenly 
came  to  it  man  or  woman  grown  set  down  in  the  midst  of  a  summer 
mead  would  it  not  seem  to  us  a  radiant  vision?" — Richard  Jefferies. 

5.  Name  the  antecedent  of  every  pronoun  in  the  quotation  on 
p.  105  of  this  book,  and  show  whether  or  not  the  reference  is  as  it 
should  be. 

6.  Collect  from  the  quotations  used  in  this  book  or  from  your 
reading  in  general  ten  or  more  sentences  that  illustrate  parallelism, 
— writing  them  on  cards,  one  to  a  card,     Try  to  find  examples  of 
as  many  kinds  of  parallelism  as  possible:  in  coordinate  and  in  sub- 


THE  SENTENCE  107 

ordinate  clauses;  in  phrases;  in  balanced  sentences,  containing 
comparisons  of  likeness  and  of  unlikeness;  in  similes  and  antitheses. 

11.  EUPHONY  AND  RHYTHM 

There  are  two  other  qualities  of  the  well-built  sentence 
which  must  be  pondered  by  everyone  who  wishes  to  write 
well.  These  are  euphony — the  relation  of  sound  to  sound — 
and  rhythm — the  relation  of  word  accents,  group  stresses, 
within  the  sentence  and  in  sentences  closely  related  within 
the  paragraph. 

For  learning  how  to  combine  these  relationships  as  effect- 
ively as  possible,  there  is  only  one  rule:  You  must  train  your 
ear.  And  again,  for  training  the  ear  there  is  only  one  rule: 
You  must  study  the  methods  used  by  successful  writers. 
This  can  be  done  only  by  first  reading  aloud  until  you  find 
a  passage  notably  pleasant  or  unpleasant  in  sound  and 
rhythm,  and  then  analyzing  the  passage  to  discover  the 
causes  of  your  pleasure  or  distress.  As  you  read  more  in  this 
way,  you  will  become  increasingly  aware  of  subtle  relation- 
ships that  had  altogether  escaped  you  at  first. 

Let  us  take  each  quality  in  turn. 

No  trained  ear  is  needed  to  hear  cacophony  in  the  sentence: 

Like  Mike,  he  gets  sick  quite^  quickly. 

In  general,  when,  hi  reading,  you  must  stop  and  give  thought 
to  the  combinations  of  sounds,  the  obstructions  are  probably 
due  to  a  bad  style — that  is,  a  style  in  which  the  problems  of 
euphony  have  not  been  considered.  If  you  read  enough  good 
literature  aloud,  and,  in  close  connection  with  such  reading, 
form  the  habit  of  reading  aloud  what  you  write,  you  will, 
consciously  or  unconsciously,  develop  a  sense  of  euphony 
and  so  at  the  very  least  learn  to  avoid  striking  defects.  At 
this  stage  of  your  study  you  cannot  of  course  make  careful 
observations  of  the  infinitely  various  possibilities  of  sound 
combinations  to  produce  precisely  the  effects  you  desire, 


108  THE  WRITING  OF  ENGLISH 

but  you  can  at  least  avoid  the  unintended  hissing  of  too  many 
s's,  the  accidental  rhyming  of  accented  and  unaccented 
syllables,  the  monotony  of  a  sound  or  group  of  sounds  re- 
peated without  variation,  the  clashing  of  sounds  similar  yet 
not  quite  the  same.  As  a  general  introduction  to  the  subject, 
you  cannot  find  anything  better  than  these  words  of  Steven- 
son's: 

Each  phrase  in  literature  is  built  of  sounds,  as  each  phrase  in  music 
consists  of  notes.  One  sound  suggests,  echoes,  demands,  and  har- 
monizes with  another;  and  the  art  of  rightly  using  these  concord- 
ances is  the  final  art  in  literature.  It  used  to  be  a  piece  of  good 
advice  to  all  young  writers  to  avoid  alliteration;  and  the  advice 
was  sound,  in  so  far  as  it.  prevented  daubing.  None  the  less  for 
that,  was  it  abominable  nonsense,  and  the  mere  raving  of  those 
blindest  of  the  blind  who  will  not  see.  The  beauty  of  the  contents 
of  a  phrase,  or  of  a  sentence,  depends  implicitly  upon  alliteration 
and  upon  assonance.  The  vowel  demands  to  be  repeated;  the 
consonant  demands  to  be  repeated;  and  both  cry  aloud  to  be  per- 
petually varied.  You  may  follow  the  adventures  of  a  letter  through 
any  passage  that  has  particularly  pleased  you;  find  it,  perhaps, 
denied  awhile,  to  tantalize  the  ear;  find  it  fired  again  at  you  in  a 
whole  broadside;  or  find  it  pass  into  congenerous  words,  one  liquid 
or  labial  melting  away  into  another.  And  you  will  find  another  and 
much  stranger  circumstance.  Literature  is  written  by  and  for  two 
senses:  a  sort  of  internal  ear,  quick  to  perceive  "unheard  melodies"; 
and  the  eye,  which  directs  the  pen  and  deciphers  the  printed  page. 

If  you  will  study  this  paragraph  carefully  and  apply  its 
teaching  to  any  good  piece  of  prose — including  itself — you 
will  begin  to  see  the  meaning  of  euphony  in  writing. 

In  close  connection  with  euphony  stands  rhythm,  the 
grouping  of  word  accents  and  stresses  needed  to  bring  out 
the  meaning,  both  within  the  sentence  and  in  the  group  of 
sentences.  Here  again  reading  aloud  is  the  all-important 
rule.  There  are  however  a  few  hints  which  may  be  helpful. 

1.  Do  not  begin  all  your  sentences  with  the  same  parts  of 
speech  and  develop  them  in  the  same  order.  To  avoid  the 
monotony  that  would  result  there  are  two  methods.  You 


THE  SENTENCE  109 

can  study  how  to  join  sentences  together  within  the  par- 
agraph by  rearranging  their  elements  so  that  parts  which  are 
related  to  ideas  in  preceding  or  following  sentences  are  placed 
at  the  beginning  and  the  end  (see  p.  136  below).  And  you 
can  make  special  study  of  the  different  elements  of  the  sen- 
tence used  by  good  writers  to  begin  a  sentence.  For  example, 
in  the  following  paragraph  by  Richard  Jefferies,  five  different 
parts  of  speech  are  used  to  begin  eight  sentences;  and  as 
some  of  these  are  emphatic,  others  not,  some  bear  a  word 
accent,  while  others  do  not,  the  rhythmic  effect  is  of  variety. 
At  the  same  time  three  closely-connected  sentences  begin 
with  the  same  part  of  speech — a  strongly-emphasized  adjec- 
tive— and  continue  in  parallel  construction. 

The  wind  passes,  and  it  bends — let  the  wind,  too,  pass  over  the 
spirit.  From  the  cloud-shadow  it  emerges  to  the  sunshine — let 
the  heart  come  out  from  the  shadow  of  roofs  to  the  open  glow  of  the 
sky.  High  above,  the  song  of  the  lark  falls  as  rain — receive  it  with 
open  hands.  Pure  is  the  color  of  the  green  flags,  the  slender-pointed 
blades — let  the  thought  be  pure  as  the  light  that  shines  through  that 
color.  Broad  are  the  downs  and  open  the  aspect — gather  the 
breadth  and  largeness  of  view.  Never  can  that  view  be  wide  enough 
and  large  enough,  there  will  always  be  room  to  aim  higher.  As  the 
air  of  the  hills  enriches  the  blood,  so  let  the  presence  of  these 
beautiful  things  enrich  the  inner  sense.  One  memory  of  the  green 
corn,  fresh  beneath  the  sun  and  wind,  will  lift  up  the  heart  from  the 
clods. — Richard  Jefferies. 

2.  In  connection  with  the  parallelism  of  the  same  par- 
agraph,  observe  that  the   similar  clauses   are  of  varying 
lengths.    If  they  were  of  approximately  the  same  length,  the 
rhythm  of  the  prose  would  approach  that  of  verse — an  effect 
always  to  be  avoided. 

3.  Similarly,  monotony  in  the  length  of  words,  and  in  the 
number  and  grouping  of  the  accented  syllables  in  word, 
phrase,  and  sentence,  should  be  avoided.     For  this  no  rule 
can  be  suggested  beyond  that  already  given.   Study  the 
effect  of  the  long  word  among  short  words,  of  the  short  word 


110  THE  WRITING  OF  ENGLISH 

among  long  words,  of  the  shifting  of  accents,  as  all  this  is 
found  in  good  work,  and  you  will  by  degrees  acquire  some 
rhythm  of  your  own.  A  very  little  comparison  will  show 
you  that  all  good  writers  have  their  own  rhythms,  which  in 
the  masters  of  style  become  unmistakable. 

ASSIGNMENT 

1.  Compare  the  following  passage  with  other  quotations  from 
Stevenson  in  this  book,  and  try  to  show  that  he  wrote  it: 

"We  begin  to  see  now  what  an  intricate  affair  is  any  perfect 
passage;  how  many  faculties,  whether  of  taste  or  pure  reason,  must 
be  held  upon  the  stretch  to  make  it;  and  why,  when  it  is  made,  it 
should  afford  us  so  complete  a  pleasure. 

"  From  the  arrangement  of  according  letters,  which  is  altogether 
arabesque  and  sensual,  up  to  the  architecture  of  the  elegant  and 
pregnant  sentence,  which  is  a  vigorous  act  of  the  pure  intellect, 
there  is  scarcely  a  faculty  in  man  but  has  been  exercised.  We  need 
not  wonder,  then,  if  perfect  sentences  are  rare,  and  perfect  pages 
rarer." 

2.  Study  the  passage  quoted  on  p.  109  of  this  book  for  euphony 
and  rhythm  as  follows:  Read  the  discussion  of  verse  rhythms  on 
pp.  398  f.  and  note  the  system  of  marking  stressed  syllables;  then 
mark  similarly  the  stressed  syllables  in  the  passage  chosen,  count 
the  range  in  the  number  of  unstressed  syllables  to  stressed,  and 
note  the  grouping  of  stressed  words.     Draw  conclusions  as  to  the 
author's  consideration  of  rhythm. 

Make  a  similar  study  of  the  passage  on  p.  170. 

3.  Study  euphony  in  the  same  passages.    Note  the  sounds  and 
sound  combinations  which  predominate,  and  the  effects  of  them. 

4.  Copy  from  any  source  outside  this  book  a  paragraph  in  which 
you  think  the  author  has  considered  rhythm  and  euphony  in  con- 
structing his  sentences,  and  another  in  which  this  has  not  been 
done.    Write  a  300  word  paper  discussing  these  two  paragraphs. 

5.  Copy  from  the  work  of  a  good  writer  eight  sentences,  each  of 
which  begins  with  a  different  part  of  speech.    Show  in  a  paper  of 
about  300  words  that  this  variation  affects  the  stresses  and  so 
avoids  monotony  of  rhythm. 

6.  Each  of  the  following  quotations  contains  good  material  but 
the  sentences  are  not  well-constructed.    You  are  given  the  parts — 


THE  SENTENCE  111 

separated  by  dashes — to  fit  together  so  as  to  make  a  series  of  effec- 
tive sentences.    Insert  all  necessary  punctuation. 

(1)  Make  six  or  seven  sentences ; 

The  first  conscious  thought  about  wild  flowers  was  to  find  out 
their  names — the  first  conscious  pleasure — and  then  I  began  to 
see  so  many  that  I  had  not  previously  noticed — once  you  wish  to 
identify  them  there  is  nothing  escapes — down  to  the  little  white 
chickweed  of  the  path  and  the  moss  of  the  wall — I  put  my  hand 
on  the  bridge  across  the  brook  to  lean  over  and  look  down  into  the 
water — Are  there  any  fish — the  bricks  of  the  pier  are  covered  with 
green,  like  a  wall-painting  to  the  surface  of  the  stream — mosses  along 
the  lines  of  the  mortar — and  among  the  moss  little  plants — what 
are  these — in  the  dry  sunlit  lane  I  look  up  to  the  top  of  the  great 
wall  about  some  domain,  where  the  green  figs  look  over  upright 
on  their  stalks — there  are  dry  plants  on  the  coping — what  are  these? 

(2)  Make  two  or  three  sentences: 

The  orange-golden  dandelion  in  the  sward  was  deeply  laden 
with  color  brought  to  it  anew  again  and  again  by  the  ships  of  the 
flowers,  the  humble-bees — to  their  quays  they  come — unlading  price- 
less essences  of  sweet  odors  brought  from  the  East  over  the  green 
seas  of  wheat — unlading  priceless  colors  on  the  broad  dandelion 
disks, — bartering  these  things  for  honey  and  pollen. 

(3)  Make  one  sentence  of  each  of  the  following: 

(a)  Rain  blown  in  gusts  through  the  misty  atmosphere,  gas  and 
smoke-laden  deepens  the  darkness — the  howl  of  the  blast  humming 
in   the  telegraph  wires — hurtling   round   the  chimney-pots  on  a 
level  with  the  line — rushing  up  from  the  archways — steam  from 
the  engines,   roar,   and   whistle,   shrieking   brakes,   and   grinding 
wheels — how  is  the  traffic  worked  at  night  in  safety  over  the  in- 
extricable windings  of  the  iron  roads  into  the  City? 

(b)  The  hues,  the  shapes,  the  song  and  life  of  birds,  above  all 
the  sunlight,  the  breath  of  heaven,  resting  on  it — the  mind  would 
be  filled  with  its  glory,  unable  to  grasp  it,  hardly  believing  that 
such  things  could  be  mere  matter  and  no  more. 

(c)  Fourteen  hours  of  sun  and  labor  and  hard  fare — now  tell 
him  what  to  do — to  go  straight  to  his  plank  bed  in  the  cowhouse — 
to  eat  a  little  more  dry  bread,  borrow  some  cheese  or  greasy  bacon — 
munch  it  alone,  and  sit  musing  till  sleep  came — he  who  had  nothing 
to  muse  about — I  think  it  would  need  a  very  clever  man  indeed  to 
invent  something  for  him  to  do,  some  way  for  him  to  spend  his 
evenings — read — to  recommend  a  man  to  read  after  fourteen  hours 
of  burning  sun  is  indeed  a  mockery — darn  his  stockings  would  be 
better. 

(d)  The  wheat  was  springing — the  soft  air  full  of  the  growth 
and  moisture — blackbirds  whistling — wood-pigeons  nesting — young 
leaves  out — a  sense  of  swelling,  sunny  fulness  in  the  atmosphere. 


112  THE  WRITING  OF  ENGLISH 

12.  SENTENCE  BUILDING 

In  the  construction  of  the  sentence  there  is  involved  an 
art  which  can  be  taught  and  learned.  As  the  sculptor  ac- 
quires skill  in  the  shaping  of  clay,  becomes  expert  in  drawing 
it  out  and  compressing  it,  taking  away  a  bit  here,  adding  a 
bit  there,  molding  and  remolding  it  until  it  represents  to 
his  satisfaction  the  thing  he  has  in  mind,  so  he  who  works  in 
sentences  must  deal  with  words.  No  degree  of  manual  dex- 
terity will  make  an  artist  of  a  worker  in  clay;  and  no  degree 
of  mere  cleverness  in  the  manipulation  of  words  and  phrases 
will  make  a  great  writer.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  no  artist 
ever  became  a  sculptor  without  being  sufficiently  master 
of  his  clay  to  make  it  express  his  mind;  and  no  writer  ever 
attained  any  degree  of  excellence  until  he  had  learned  in 
some  measure  the  craft  of  fitting  and  adjusting  his  sentences 
to  the  form  of  his  ideas.  And  it  is  further  true  that  skill  in 
the  craft  of  writing  goes  far  toward  removing  obstacles  to 
the  very  formation  of  the  ideas  that  are  required  for  self- 
expression.  Stevenson — perhaps  with  undue  self-deprecia- 
tion— said  of  his  own  talent  that  it  was  not  extraordinary; 
but  he  also  recognized  the  undoubted  fact  that  he  owed  his 
high  position  as  a  writer  in  large  part  to  his  admirable  craft- 
manship.  And  his  skill  in  this  respect,  which  is  little  short 
of  amazing,  he  acquired  by  the  hardest  sort  of  hard  work. 
If  you  read  his  letters,  you  will  come  to  realize  what  can  be 
accomplished  by  sheer  application  to  matters  of  technique. 
There  are  many  gifted  young  writers  to-day  who  will  fail  of  a 
lasting  position  in  literature  chiefly  because  they  either  do 
not  recognize  this  principle  or  do  not  take  the  trouble  to 
apply  it. 

In  regard  to  sentences  particularly,  the  difficulty  of  the 
inexperienced  writer  is  at  first  largely  due  to  the  fact  that  he 
looks  upon  them  as  a  sort  of  crystallization  of  thought,  which 
becomes  permanent  as  soon  as  it  is  conceived.  As  soon  as  he 


THE  SENTENCE  113 

comes  to  realize  the  plasticity  of  phrasing,  he  is  on  the  way 
to  become  a  master  of  the  craft  of  writing.  And  when  the 
craft  is  mastered,  his  degree  of  success  will  depend  upon 
the  power  of  his  imagination  to  reflect  such  aspects  of  life 
as  it  encounters,  and  to  refract,  as  it  were,  the  confusion  of 
experience  into  types  and  principles  of  truth. 

But  before  this  can  be  attempted  or  even  dreamed  of,  he 
must  labor  with  sentences.  He  must,  in  the  beginning,  con- 
ceive as  in  array  before  him  the  entire  range  of  possibilities 
that  determine  the  shaping  of  each  sentence.  By  all  means, 
let  the  sentence  have  its  way  at  first — let  the  thought  come 
as  it  will  naturally.  But  then  hold  it  off  and  look  at  it  to  see 
if  it  has  come  in  the  best  possible  way  for  the  expression  of 
the  underlying  thought.  In  many  cases,  when  the  writer  is 
unpractised,  a  mere  reading — especially  reading  aloud — 
will  show  ways  in  which  almost  any  sentence  can  be  improved. 
But  as  the  unpractised  writer  is  also  likely  to  be  uncritical, 
he  needs  to  bring  into  consciousness  all  the  possibilities  of 
improvement  in  every  doubtful  case.  He  needs  to  ask  him- 
self such  questions  as  these: 

Does  the  situation  really  warrant  this  use  of  the  exclam- 
atory form  of  sentence?  Or  would  the  plain  declarative  be 
better?  Or  would  the  interrogative  form  in  this  case  be  a 
happy  compromise  in  emphasis  between  the  two? 

Are  the  ideas  in  this  compound  sentence  really  coordinate, 
or  would  it  be  better  to  subordinate  some  of  them?  If  so, 
which? 

Is  this  compound  sentence  too  long?  Shall  I  break  it  up 
into  simple  sentences?  What  happens  if  I  do? 

Are  these  simple  sentences  too  short  and  jerky?  Shall  I 
combine  them — or  some  of  them — into  a  compound  sentence? 
Or  would  it  be  better  to  subordinate  some  of  them  and  make 
a  complex  sentence? 

Are  the  ideas  in  this  compound  sentence  parallel?  Are  my 
constructions  parallel?  Shall  I  make  them  so?  How? 


114  THE  WRITING  OF  ENGLISH 

In  this  complex  sentence,  are  the  subordinate  clauses  so 
arranged  that  the  emphasis  falls  where  it  should?  If  not, 
how  shall  I  rearrange  them?  Would  it  be  better  to  use  a 
phrase  for  this  clause?  or  a  clause  for  this  phrase? 

Is  this  phrase  or  clause  an  essential  modifier  or  not?  Then 
how  about  the  punctuation? 

These  are  only  the  most  elementary  of  the  questions  that 
should  be  asked.  With  practice,  the  answers  to  them  will 
become  increasingly  an  instinct,  so  that  they  are  settled 
without  really  coming  into  the  writer's  consciousness  at  all; 
but  their  places  will  be  taken  by  others,  which  must  likewise 
be  settled  by  deliberation  until  they  in  turn  become  a  part 
of  the  subconscious  regulation  of  detail  which  enables  the 
skilled  craftsman  in  writing  to  throw  his  whole  attention 
upon  the  ideas  that  he  is  trying  to  express. 

It  is  true,  on  the  one  hand,  that  the  sentence  problem  never 
reaches  the  vanishing  point;  and  on  the  other,  that  no  writer 
has  ever  manipulated  his  sentences  to  such  a  degree  of  per- 
fection that  there  is  not  here  and  there  room  for  improve- 
ment. If  perfection  were  easily  attained,  writing  would 
cease  to  be  an  art  with  infinite  possibilities  of  variation,  and 
become  a  demonstrable  science  like  mathematics.  It  is  ex- 
actly because  of  the  infinite  flexibility  and  variability  of  lan- 
guage, as  it  grows  through  phrasing  from  the  single  word 
to  the  thought  predication  that  is  called  the  sentence,  that 
literature  is  able  increasingly  to  express  all  phases  of  human 
experience  and  thinking. 

One  final  word  as  to  the  keeping  and  breaking  of  rules: 
you  must  keep  them  until  you  are  their  master.  When  you 
are  able  to  play  with  the  sentence  as  a  juggler  plays  with  his 
knives — and  not  until  then — you  may  make  your  own  laws 
for  its  construction.  You  may  then,  if  it  suits  your  pur- 
pose to  do  so,  punctuate  as  sentences  groups  of  words 
that  are  not  sentences,  as  Kipling  does  in  the  following 
example: 


THE  SENTENCE  115 

The  pitiless  Moon  shows  it  all.  Shows,  too,  the  plains  outside 
the  city,  and  here  and  there  a  hand's-breadth  of  the  Ravee  without 
the  walls.  Shows  lastly,  a  splash  of  glittering  silver  on  a  house-top 
almost  directly  below  the  mosque  Minar. 

The  last  two  groups  of  words  are  not  sentences — they  have 
no  subject:  they  are  sweeps  of  the  brush  in  painting  a  pic- 
ture. They  are  related  to  the  introductory  sentence,  which 
alone  contains  the  subject;  and  yet  they  are  more  distinct 
dabs  of  paint,  to  use  an  artist's  figure,  then  if  each  contained 
a  subject.  In  the  next  sentence,  the  predicate  is  omitted  in 
order  to  throw  more  emphasis  upon  the  sounds  than  upon 
the  hearing  of  them: 

More  tinkling  of  sluiced  water-pots;  faint  jarring  of  wooden 
bedsteads  moved  into  or  out  of  the  shadows;  uncouth  music  of 
stringed  instruments  softened  by  distance  into  a  plaintive  wail, 
and  one  low  grumble  of  far-off  thunder. — Kipling. 

Only  the  skilled  craftsman  may  attempt  this  sort  of  thing; 
but  to  admire  it  is  of  service  to  the  apprentice:  it  shows  him 
in  concrete  form  that  flexibility  of  structure  which  is  one  of 
the  foundations  of  art. 

Similarly,  the  apprentice  must  come  to  understand  that 
faithfulness  in  following  the  well-worn  paths  of  punctuation 
will  bring  him  to  the  point  where  he  may  have  commas  and 
semicolons  at  his  command.  The  following  sentence  from 
Stevenson  is  not  punctuated  according  to  rule,  but  the  longer 
pauses  indicated  by  the  semicolons  emphasize  the  bareness 
of  the  room: 

It  was  very  bare  of  furniture:  only  some  gold  plate  on  a  sideboard; 
some  folios;  and  a  stand  of  armor  between  the  windows. 

But  the  structure  of  a  sentence  is  not  entirely  a  problem  of 
internal  economy;  it  depends  in  large  degree  upon  the  char- 
acter of  the  sentence  that  precedes  and  the  one  that  follows. 
This  fact  brings  us  to  the  discussion  of  the  paragraph  as  an 
organization  of  sentences. 


116  THE  WRITING  OF  ENGLISH 

0 

ASSIGNMENT 

1.  Analyze  the  sentences  in  the  following  paragraphs  from  as 
many  points  of  view  as  possible — length,  structure,  form,  punctua- 
tion, balance,  suspense,  parallelism,  emphasis,  phrasing,  economy, 
etc. 

"But  there  is  of  culture  another  view,  in  which  not  solely  the 
scientific  passion,  the  sheer  desire  to  see  things  as  they  are,  natural 
and  proper  in  an  intelligent  being,  appears  as  the  ground  of  it. 
There  is  a  view  in  which  all  the  love  of  our  neighbor,  the  impulses 
toward  action,  help,  and  beneficence,  the  desire  for  removing  human 
error,  clearing  human  confusion,  and  diminishing  human  misery, 
the  noble  aspiration  to  leave  the  world  better  and  happier  than  we 
found  it, — motives  eminently  such  as  are  called  social, — come  in 
as  part  of  the  grounds  of  culture,  and  the  main  and  preeminent 
part.  Culture  is  then  properly  described  not  as  having  its  origin 
in  curiosity,  but  as  having  its  origin  in  the  love  of  perfection;  it  is  a 
study  of  perfection.  It  moves  by  the  force,  not  merely  or  primarily 
of  the  scientific  passion  for  pure  knowledge,  but  also  of  the  moral 
and  social  passion  for  doing  good.  As,  in  the  first  view  of  it,  we 
took  for  its  worthy  motto  Montesquieu's  words:  'To  render  an 
intelligent  being  yet  more  intelligent'  so,  in  the  second  view  of  it, 
there  is  no  better  motto  which  it  can  have  than  these  words  of 
Bishop  Wilson:  'To  make  reason  and  the  will  of  God  prevail.'  " 

— Matthew  Arnold. 

"That  only  is  true  enlargement  of  mind  which  is  the  power  of 
viewing  many  things  at  once  as  one  whole,  of  referring  them  severally 
to  their  true  place  in  the  universal  system,  of  understanding  their 
respective  values,  and  determining  their  mutual  dependence.  Thus 
is  that  form  of  Universal  Knowledge,  of  which  I  have  on  a  former 
occasion  spoken,  set  up  in  the  individual  intellect,  and  constitutes 
its  perfection.  Possessed  of  this  real  illumination,  the  mind  never 
views  any  part  of  the  extended  subject-matter  of  Knowledge  with- 
out recollecting  that  it  is  but  a  part,  or  without  the  associations 
which  spring  from  this  recollection.  It  makes  everything  in  some 
sort  lead  to  everything  else;  it  would  communicate  the  image  of 
the  whole  to  every  separate  portion,  till  that  whole  becomes  in 
imagination  like  a  spirit,  everywhere  pervading  and  penetrating 
its  component  parts,  and  giving  them  one  definite  meaning." 

— John  Henry  Newman. 

2.  Discuss  the  following   sentences   (1)   as  giving  a  statement 
of  the  theory  of  the  sentence,  and  (2)  as  exemplifications  of  this 
theory: 

"Each  sentence,  by  successive  phrases,  shall  first  come  into  a 


THE  SENTENCE  117 

kind  of  knot,  and  then,  after  a  moment  of  suspended  meaning, 
solve  and  clear  itself. 

Each  phrase,  besides,  is  to  be  comely  in  itself;  and  between  the 
implication  and  the  evolution  of  the  sentence  there  should  be  a 
satisfying  equipoise  of  sound;  for  nothing  more  often  disappoints 
the  ear  than  a  sentence  solemnly  and  sonorously  prepared,  and 
hastily  and  weakly  finished.  Nor  should  the  balance  be  too  striking 
and  exact,  for  the  one  rule  is  to  be  infinitely  various;  and  to  interest, 
to  disappoint,  to  surprise,  and  yet  still  to  gratify;  to  be  ever  chang- 
ing, as  it  were,  the  stitch,  and  yet  still  to  give  the  effect  of  an  in- 
genious neatness." — Stevenson. 


CHAPTER  VII 
THE  PARAGRAPH 

1.  EXTERNAL  ORGANIZATION 

THE  paragraph,  like  the  sentence,  is  an  organization  of 
thought.  The  sentence  is  the  smallest  unit  of  thought  that 
can  stand  alone  in  written  discourse,  and  its  component  parts 
are  words;  the  paragraph  is  the  next  larger  unit,  and  its  com- 
ponent parts  are  sentences.  The  paragraph,  in  turn,  is  also 
a  component  part  of  every  organized  piece  of  writing,  whether 
this  be  story,  article,  or  chapter  of  a  book. 

Every  paragraph,  then,  is  to  be  viewed  in  two  ways: 

Externally,  as  a  component  part  of  an  organized  piece  of 
writing.  The  word  composition  means  putting  together;  hence, 
a  composition  is  an  organization  of  parts — paragraphs. 

Internally,  as  in  itself  an  organization  of  which  the  com- 
ponent parts  are  sentences. 

As  sentences  are  set  apart  from  one  another  by  means  of 
capitals  and  punctuation  marks,  so  paragraphs  are  set  apart 
from  one  another  by  indention. 

NOTE. — In  writing,  the  usual  margin  is  doubled  for  indention; 
in  print  it  is  increased  by  the  width  of  the  letter  M. 

When  single  spacing  is  used  in  a  typewritten  letter,  it  is  cus- 
tomary to  leave  double  spacing  between  paragraphs. 

In  a  short  piece  of  writing — for  example,  less  than  two 
thousand  words — each  paragraph  would  usually  contain  all 
that  is  said  about  one  main  section  or  phrase  of  the  subject. 
To  get  a  clear  idea  of  this,  study  the  following  outlines  for 
short  papers: 

118 


THE  PARAGRAPH 


119 


1. 


General  framework 1f  1 

The  Structure        Fuselage f  2 

of  an  Wings f  3 

Aeroplane  Engine ^[  4 

Propeller f  5 

(2000  words)  (300-500  words  each) 

2. 

,-,      ,  _  ..         Better  buying fl  1 

Food  Conservation    More  scientific  menus f  2 

ln  ™e  Smaller  portions f  3 

Uses  of  left-overs  and  other  waste ^  4 

(1200  words)      (about  300  words  each) 

3. 

The  furnace 1f  1 

The  materials f 

Glass  Blowing         The  implements 

Shaping  and  blowing 

Tinting If  5 

(1000  words)  (100-300  words  each) 

4. 

Valenciennes 

; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ;'  » 

Malines,  etc «[  4 

(500  words)  100-200  words  each) 


But  in  a  longer,  more  complex  composition  this  simple  re- 
lationship does  not  answer.  The  Structure  of  the  Aeroplane, 
for  example,  in  a  5000  word  article,  would  involve  two  sets  of 
heads,  main  heads  and  subheads.  The  main  heads  might 
be  the  essential  parts  in  the  construction  of  any  typical 
machine — framework,  fuselage,  wings,  engine,  propeller, 
etc.,  and  five  or  six  standard  types  of  .aeroplanes — and  the 
subheads,  the  variations  in  the  different  types  of  machines 
with  reference  to  the  structural  parts,  as  far  as  they  show 
variations.  The  paragraphs  would  then  be  grouped: 


120  THE  WRITING  OF  ENGLISH 

Framework.  . 


I.  Theoretical 
Aeroplane 


Fuselage If  2 

Wings If  3 

Engine f  4 

Propeller f  fl 

II.  Curtis  Training  Machine. 

Subheads  1-5,  or  as  many  as  are  needed  to  show  variations  from 
Type  A,  your  foundation  type 
III.  Handley-Page  Type:  same  arrangement. 

In  a  piece  of  work  long  enough  to  make  a  book,  the  larger 
divisions  of  the  thought — that  is,  the  clusters  of  paragraphs — 
are  often  given  section  and  chapter  numbers.  You  will  see 
at  once  that  a  very  complex  treatment  of  a  subject  will 
necessarily  contain  cluster  within  cluster  of  such  divisions 
until  the  smallest  consists  of  a  series  of  paragraphs. 

We  shall  discuss  further  on  the  structure  of  the  story,  the 
description,  the  exposition,  the  argument;  but  at  this  point 
you  should  see  clearly  that  any  piece  of  writing,  considered 
as  a  unit,  should  consist  of  a  series,  or  a  series  of  clusters,  of 
organically  related  paragraphs. 


ASSIGNMENT 

1.  Study  the  paragraphing  in  Section  10,  pp.   100-105  of  this 
book,  by  writing  the  subject  of  each  paragraph  and  discussing  in 
class  the  relation  of  the  paragraphs  to  one  another. 

2.  Sketch  the  paragraphing,  according  to  the  plans  on  p.  119,  for 
a  composition  of  less  than  a  thousand  words  on  each  of  the  following 
subjects.    Where  you  lack  information,  get  it  from  books  or  periodi- 
cals, following  the  directions  in  pp.  23-25. 

Milton's  Works. 

American  Pioneers  in  Aviation. 

Types  of  Boats  Used  in  the  Navy. 

Raising  Chickens. 

The  Commonest  Stanza  Forms  Used  in  English. 

The  Financing  of  Public  Utilities.     ' 

Electrical  Household  Device.-'. 


THE  PARAGRAPH  121 

2.  LENGTH 

What  determines  the  length  of  a  paragraph?  Theoret- 
ically, it  is  governed  by  the  principle  that  controls  sentence 
length :  that  is,  organization — keeping  together  what  belongs 
together  in  thought.  In  other  words,  as  you  try  to  keep 
within  the  unifying  limits  of  the  sentence  the  most  closely 
related  parts  of  the  thought,  so  within  the  unifying  limits 
of  the  paragraph,  you  keep  the  most  closely  related  sentences. 

But  with  paragraphs  as  with  sentences  practical  considera- 
tions must  be  taken  into  account.  What  is  the  effect  upon 
your  mind  of  looking  at  two  pages  of  print  in  which  not  a 
single  paragraph  indention  appears?  A  paragraph  that 
extends  over  two  or  more  pages  of  printed  matter,  although 
it  may  be  perfectly  unified  in  thought,  will  involve  a  great 
strain  upon  the  attention  of  the  reader.  He  will  be  con- 
tinually looking  for  signs  of  a  plan  underlying  the  mass  of 
detail  presented;  and  often  he  cannot  be  sure  that  he  has 
found  that  plan  until  he  has  reached  the  end  of  the  paragraph. 
Consequently,  his  impression  of  the  whole  will  be  blurred. 

To  avoid  this  obstruction  to  clearness,  the  writer  who 
habitually  thinks  in  long  paragraphs  should  consider,  when- 
ever he  finds  himself  overstepping  reasonable  limits,  whether 
his  single  paragraph  cannot  be  better  organized  as  a  cluster 
of  paragraphs.  For  such  a  writer,  it  is  a  good  rule  to  have 
usually  at  least  one  paragraph  indention  on  each  page  of 
manuscript. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  writer  who  habitually  includes 
only  two  or  three  sentences  in  a  paragraph,  or  who  even 
writes  a  single  sentence  as  a  paragraph,  should  practise 
organizing  a  cluster  of  these  short  paragraphs  into  a  long 
paragraph  whenever  it  is  possible  to  do  so.  For  him  a  good 
rule  is  not  to  allow  more  than  two  or  three  paragraphs  on  a 
page  (except  in  quoting  conversation;  see  below). 

In  learning  to  paragraph,  then,  you  should  avoid  the  two 


122  THE  WRITING  OF  ENGLISH 

extremes.  If  your  paragraph  runs  over  the  page,  you  may 
easily  forget  its  beginning  and  the  principle  on  which  you 
are  constructing  it,  and  may  allow  it  to  go  on  indefinitely, 
and  so  lose  all  its  organization.  If  you  make  a  new  paragraph 
for  every  third  or  fourth  sentence,  you  will  inevitably  think 
disjointedly  and  scrappily.  Whatever  your  natural  tendency 
in  paragraphing  is,  try  to  counterbalance  it  by  making  a 
deliberate  effort  in  the  opposite  direction.  The  best  writers 
use  both  long  and  short  paragraphs  in  the  same  piece  of  work, 
combining  them  in  such  a  way  as  to  reflect  the  varying  phases 
and  currents  of  their  thought. 

In  writing  conversation  a  special  rule  for  paragraphing  is 
followed  by  good  writers:  Make  a  fresh  paragraph  for  each 
change  of  speaker. 

"Did  you  tell  him?"  asked  Jean,  playing  nervously  with  her 
hatpins.  "What  did  he  say?" 

"Yes.    Nothing." 

"Was  he  pleased?" 

"I  don't  think  so.  He  looked  annoyed.  I  was  sorry  I  had  men- 
tioned the  matter.  You  never  can  tell  about  a  man." 

Finally,  in  order  to  establish  a  critical  attitude  toward 
your  own  paragraphing,  it  is  a  good  plan  to  give  all  your 
finished  work  a  special  reading  merely  as  an  organization  of 
related  paragraphs;  and  viewing  it  as  a  whole,  to  mark 
changes  that  improve  the  structure.  Insert  the  ^  mark  in 
the  margin  to  indicate  the  beginning  of  a  paragraph  not 
already  shown  by  indention;  and  connect  the  end  of  one 
paragraph  and  the  beginning  of  the  next  by  a  curve  CS~)> 
writing  in  the  margin  "No  1[,"  or  "run  on"  to  indicate  that 
two  paragraphs  are  to  run  together  into  one. 

ASSIGNMENT 

1.  Make  a  study  of  paragraph  lengths  in  the  current  issue  of 
your  newspaper:  (a)  in  a  news  article;  (b)  in  an  editorial.  Count 
the  number  of  sentences,  and  the  number  of  words  in  each  sen- 


THE  PARAGRAPH  123 

tence.  Omit  portions  of  the  text  reporting  conversation,  as  here 
the  length  is  arbitrarily  determined.  Sum  up  your  results  on  news- 
paper paragraphing. 

2.  Make  a  similar  study  of  an  article  of  about  2000  words  in 
some  good  magazine. 

3.  Repeat  the  process  for  a  chapter  in  some  textbook.     If  you 
feel  that  some  paragraphs  are  too  long,  show  how  they  might  be 
broken  up  to  advantage. 

4.  Continue  the  work  in  some  book  that  you  are  reading  for 
pleasure  (if  this  is  a  novel,  choose  a  portion  in  which  there  is  no 
conversation). 

5.  Write  a  short  paper  (300-500  words),  discussing  the  results 
of  the  four  preceding  studies. 

6.  Write  as  accurate  a  report  as  you  can  of  a  short  conversation 
overheard  by  you  recently,  paragraphing  it  correctly. 

7.  Read  carefully  the  most  elaborate  paper  that  you  have  written 
this  year  on  any  subject,  and  mark  in  it  any  changes  in  paragraphing 
that  you  would  now  introduce. 


3.  INTERNAL  ORGANIZATION 

When  you  have  outlined  your  paper,  you  find  that  each 
head  suggests  material  for  a  paragraph  or  group  of  par- 
agraphs. How  shall  you  proceed  to  fill  in  the  outline — to 
organize  your  sentences  under  each  division  of  the  thought? 

Here,  as  in  the  case  of  the  sentence,  the  fundamental  idea 
is  movement.  The  thought  must  progress  from  the  first 
sentence  to  the  last;  the  reader  must  feel  that  he  is  going 
forward,  not  round  and  round  in  a  circle.  It  is  not  enough 
merely  to  tie  together  a  group  of  sentences  all  relating  to 
the  same  topic;  they  must  be  placed  so  that  each  marks  a 
definite  advance  toward  a  goal  that  you  have  in  mind  when 
you  begin  the  paragraph. 

If  you  wish  your  reader  to  share  your  knowledge  of  that 
goal,  you  may  state  it  in  a  sentence — technically  known  as 
the  topic  sentence — at  the  beginning  of  the  paragraph;  or 
you  may  remind  him  of  it  by  using  such  a  sentence  at  some 
point  within  the  paragraph,  if  it  fits  in  well;  or  you  may  sum 


124  THE  WRITING  OF  ENGLISH 

up  the  content  of  the  paragraph  in  such  a  sentence  at  the 
end. 

The  use  of  a  topic  sentence  always  makes  for  clearness. 
Written  invariably  at  the  beginning  of  each  paragraph,  it 
gives  a  certain  formality  to  the  composition;  but  this  formal- 
ity can  be  avoided  by  shifting  the  position  of  the  topic  sen- 
tence, so  that  the  reader  does  not  look  for  it  in  some  special 
place.  But  whether  you  state  it  in  your  paper  or  not,  it 
should  always  lie  before  you  in  your  outline;  and  continual 
reference  to  it  will  help  to  keep  you  to  the  point. 

The  development  of  the  paragraph — its  progression  toward 
its  goal — is  to  a  considerable  extent  determined  by  the  sub- 
ject itself.  You  will  inevitably  think  in  one  of  three  ways 
about  any  subject  which  you  are  going  to  discuss: 

1.  If  it  is  concrete — a  person,  thing,  place,  event,  etc. — you 
will  naturally  think  about  its  parts  and  qualities;  you  will 
develop  it  by  details. 

2.  If  it  is  abstract — a  class,  a  truth,  a  law — you  will  look 
for  illustrations  of  it  in  the  concrete;  you  may  develop  it  by 
examples. 

3.  Instead  of  developing  the  topic  by  details  or  examples, 
you  may  simply  repeat  the  same  idea  in  different  ways;  that 
is,  you  may  develop  it  by  repetition. 

In  one  of  these  three  ways  you  must  think;  but  they  deter- 
mine only  the  content  of  your  paragraph,  not  the  order  in 
which  the  sentences  shall  stand.  Which  detail  shall  be  given 
first?  which  example?  in  what  order  shall  the  repetitions  of  an 
idea  be  arranged?  The  answers  to  these  questions  depend 
partly  upon  the  subject  and  partly  upon  the  effect  desired. 

Details  usually  are  arranged  in  some  time-order  in  narra- 
tion; in  some  place-order  in  description;  in  some  order  of 
logical  relation  in  exposition.  Further,  a  paragraph  con- 
sisting of  one  or  two  long  illustrations  may  build  up  each  of 
these  on  principles  of  time,  place,  or  relationship  order;  but  a 
paragraph  consisting  of  a  group  of  examples  or  repetitions 


THE  PARAGRAPH  125 

must  be  arranged  on  some  other  principle;  and  there  are 
many  cases  in  which  details  do  not  fall  into  any  obvious 
arrangement  of  time,  place,  or  logical  relationship,  but  must 
be  grouped  on  some  other  basis. 

Now  remembering  that  the  fundamental  idea  of  the  par- 
agraph is  movement,  progress,  you  will  see  that  this  progress 
can  be  maintained  by  two  general  methods: 

1.  You  may  arrange  your  details,  examples,  or  repetitions 
in  the  order  of  climax,  so  that  each  in  turn  produces  a  stronger 
impression  than  the  one  before.    The  deepening  impression 
may  be  due  to  greater  interest,  importance,  or  complexity  of 
idea,  or  to  more  striking  or  beautiful  expression  of  the  same 
idea.    But  unless  there  is  this  kind  of  progress,  the  reader's 
attention  will  flag,  and  your  hold  upon  him  will  weaken. 

2.  You  may,  instead  of  moving  straight  forward  to  a  climax 
as  your  goal,  zig-zag  by  the  use  of  comparison,  which  shows 
analogy  or  contrast  between  the  thought  of  a  paragraph  and 
another  thought  introduced  into  the  paragraph  for  the  sake 
of  this  effect;  or  between  the  details  or  examples  which  are 
already  component  parts  of  the  paragraph.     This  method 
of  comparison  you  may  apply  in  various  ways:  One  is,  to 
balance  one  set  of  details  or  examples  over  against  another, 
so  that  their  resemblances  or  differences  will  be  emphasized 
by  their  position;  another  is,  to  carry  some  figure  of  speech, 
practically  always  a  metaphor  or  simile  or  antithesis,  through- 
out the  paragraph,  introducing  the  comparison  or  contrast 
into  every  sentence. 

The  most  effective  paragraphing  is  that  in  which  both  these 
methods  are  used  with  the  greatest  freedom,  either  singly  or 
in  combination.  In  order  to  see  how  freely  they  are  blended, 
let  us  analyze  a  number  of  paragraphs : 

1.  The  trouble  began  over  the  question  of  Repentance.  2.  George 
was  willing,  nay  eager,  to  repent  of  anything,  if  only  he  could  think 
of  something  worth  repenting  of.  3.  But  he  couldn't.  4.  A  thou- 
sand times  he  told  himself  that  he  was  a  miserable  sinner,  but  he 


126  THE  WRITING  OF  ENGLISH 

didn't  feel  like  one,  and  couldn't  for  the  life  of  him  understand 
what  wrong  he  had  done.  5.  It  is  true  he  had  fired  a  pea-shooter 
at  the  cat;  he  had  once  killed  a  blackbird;  he  had  kicked  a  little 
boy  for  making  faces  at  him;  he  had  been  rude  to  his  aunt;  but 
he  had  far  too  much  good  sense  to  treat  these  actions  as  the  needed 
raw  material  for  a  genuine  repentance.  6.  Once  in  his  father's  study 
he  had  seen  a  cash-box  lying  open  on  the  table  and  had  seriously 
debated  the  question  of  stealing  a  sovereign,  in  order  to  get  a  point 
of  departure.  7.  But  again  his  good  sense  came  to  the  rescue.  8. 
God  was  not  likely  to  be  deceived  by  so  shallow  a  trick. — L.  P.  Jacks. 

The  development  is  as  follows:  1,  topic  sentence;  2,  3,  de- 
tails; 4,  repetition  with  more  detail;  5,  examples,  and  repeti- 
tion; 6,  example;  7,  detail  of  6;  8,  repetition.  The  general 
order  is  climactic :  the  last  three  sentences  show  more  emphat- 
ically than  the  preceding  George's  extreme  eagerness  to  re- 
pent. 

The  next  paragraph,  which  describes  the  effect  of  reading 
Robinson  Crusoe,  is  developed  by  repetition: 

1.  No  philosopher  has  ever  had  a  clearer  conception  of  the  true 
end  of  man  than  I  had  at  the  age  of  twelve.  2.  All  forms  of  self- 
realization  were  false  save  one;  and  that  was,  to  get  oneself  cast 
away,  by  hook  or  crook,  upon  a  Desolate  Island.  3.  Nothing  else 
would  satisfy.  4.  Let  others  go  to  Heaven  if  they  would;  let  others 
be  good,  or  great;  but  let  me  be  cast  on  some  lonely  palm-strewn 
shore  in  the  uttermost  parts  of  the  earth.  5.  It  was  the  foolish 
ship  that  came  to  port;  it  was  the  wise  ship  that  was  wrecked. 
6.  Not  for  all  the  kingdoms  of  this  world  would  I  have  exchanged 
my  keg  of  powder,  my  cap  of  goatskin,  my  fortification,  and  my  raft. 

— L.  P.  Jacks. 

The  development  is  as  follows:  1,  topic;  2,  topic  repeated  in 
specific  terms;  3,  repeated  negatively;  4,  repeated  with  con- 
trast; 5,  repeated  with  emphasis  on  the  detail  ship;  6,  re- 
peated with  emphasis  on  other  details.  The  order  is  climac- 
tic, the  features  last  mentioned  are  those  which  especially 
appealed  to  the  boy's  imagination. 

The  next  paragraph  is  developed  chiefly  by  examples,  with 
some  repetition  and  detail: 


THE  PARAGRAPH  127 

1.  It  was  always  the  little  islands  I  loved  the  best,  and  if  they 
were  not  only  small  but  very  remote,  like  St.  Kilda,  Kerguelen,  or 
Juan  Fernandez,  so  that  a  mariner  shipwrecked  on  their  shores 
might  have  a  reasonable  chance  of  being  unrescued  for  years,  I 
rejoiced  like  the  man  who  has  discovered  a  treasure  hidden  in  a 
field.  2.  Australia  interested  me  not  the  least — it  was  too  big. 
3.  No  castaway  of  twelve  years  could  be  expected  to  manage  such 
a  place.  4.  The  Channel  Islands  were  contemptible;  they  were  too 
near.  5.  They  suggested  the  odious  possibility  of  being  rescued 
by  a  steamer.  6.  But  the  Isles  of  Aru,  Tinian,  and  Tidore,  the 
Dampier  Group,  the  Solomons,  the  Celebes — these  were  the  places 
where  a  castaway  of  merit  might  make  his  mark. — L.  P.  Jacks. 

The  development  is  as  follows:  1,  topic,  with  examples; 
2,  example;  3,  detail,  cause;  4,  example;  5,  detail,  cause;  6, 
repetition  of  the  topic,  with  more  examples.  The  order  is 
climactic  in  suggest! veness,  as  you  will  see  if  you  compare  the 
lists  of  islands  in  1  and  6. 

The  next  paragraph  shows  the  effect  of  Robinson  Crusoe 
upon  a  boy's  mind  when  he  is  ill.  The  general  development 
is  by  details;  but  when  these  are  extraordinary,  repetition  is 
used  to  give  them  the  proper  emphasis : 

1.  The  long  hours  of  the  sleepless  nights,  of  which  I  had  many, 
were  passed  in  planning  adventures  on  Desolate  Islands.  2.  My 
imagination  ran  riot,  and  brought  me,  I  doubt  not,  perilously  near 
insanity.  3.  I  painted  my  islands  in  colors  such  as  never  were  on 
sea  or  land;  1  stored  them  with  buried  treasures;  I  caused  them  to 
be  inhabited  by  every  conceivable  wild  beast;  I  invaded  them  with 
innumerable  tribes  of  savages,  and  I  fought  these  poor  barbarians 
and  slaughtered  them  at  will.  4.  I  took  care  that  the  vessel  in 
which  I  was  wrecked  should  always  have  in  its  hold  not  only  barrels 
of  gunpowder  and  kegs  of  sugar,  but  grand  pianos,  for  I  was  ex- 
cessively fond  of  music,  and  velocipedes,  just  invented,  one  of  which 
had  been  promised  me  as  a  birthday  gift.  5.  Anachronisms  troubled 
me  not  a  whit.  6.  How  I  got  the  grand  piano  ashore  would  be  a 
long  story  to  tell.  7.  It  was  a  vast  undertaking,  and  kept  my  wits 
at  work  for  weeks,  and  prolonged  to  morning  many  a  sleepless  night. 
8.  Never  since  the  invention  of  tools  was  such  an  elaborate  mechan- 
ism devised  as  that  by  which,  single-handed,  I  transported  the  grand 
piano  from  the  wreck  to  my  "fortification."  9.  I  have  invented 


128  THE  WRITING  OF  ENGLISH 

many  impossible  things  in  my  time,  but  none  which  does  me  so 
much  credit  as  that. — L.  P.  Jacks. 

The  development  is  as  follows:  1,  topic;  2,  repeated,  with 
detail;  3,  4,  details;  5,  repetition  of  part  of  4;  6-9,  repetition 
of  part  of  4,  with  more  details.  The  order  is  that  of  climax, 
with  emphasis  thrown  by  repetition  upon  the  most  absurd, 
hence,  under  the  circumstances,  most  interesting,  detail. 

The  next  paragraph  is  developed  by  means  of  one  example, 
which  is  in  turn  developed  by  another  example;  and  this  is 
developed  by  details  in  the  form  of  conversation.  Note  that 
when  a  conversation  is  quoted  as  a  unit  to  form  an  example, 
the  usual  rule  of  making  a  new  paragraph  for  each  change  of 
speaker  falls  into  abeyance: 

Of  Rodright's  views  on  Church  and  State  I  shall  content  myself 
by  giving  an  indication,  or  rather  a  sample.  He  was  a  Tory  in 
politics;  but  his  views  were  based  less  on  the  conviction  that  his 
own  party  was  right  than  on  contempt  for  the  policies  of  his  oppo- 
nents. "Them  Radicals,"  he  would  say,  "don't  know  how  to  play 
their  own  game.  Look  at  all  this  'ere  Radical  Finance.  Taxin' 
the  rich!  Why,  there's  no  such  thing.  You  can't  tax  the  rich. 
Me  and  another  big-pocketty  man  was  talkin'  it  over  in  the  Club 
last  night.  'Rod,'  he  says  to  me,  'how  much  is  your  sovereign 
worth  since  the  last  Budget  ? '  '  Fifteen  bob  at  most,'  I  says.  '  Well,' 
he  says,  'does  it  'urt  you?'  'Not  a  bit,'  I  says,  'the  smaller  they 
makes  my  sovereign,  the  more  sovereigns  I  makes — that's  all.' 
'Same  'ere,'  says  he." — L.  P.  Jacks. 

The  following  paragraph  is  developed  by  details  which 
carry  out  in  almost  every  sentence  a  comparison  suggested 
as  a  metaphor  in  the  topic  sentence: 

Evolution  is  a  cosmic  game  of  Pussy  wants  a  corner.  Each 
creature  has  its  eye  on  some  snug  corner  where  it  would  rest  in 
peace.  Each  corner  is  occupied  by  some  creature  that  is  not.  al- 
together satisfied  and  that  is  on  the  lookout  for  a  larger  sphere. 
There  is  much  beckoning  between  those  who  are  desirous  of  making 
a  change.  Now  and  then  some  bold  spirit  gives  up  his  assured 
position  and  scrambles  for  something  better.  The  chances  are 
that  the  adventurer  finds  it  harder  to  attain  the  coveted  place  than 


THE  PARAGRAPH  129 

he  had  thought.  For  the  fact  is  that  there  are  not  enough  corners 
to  go  around.  If  there  were  enough  corners,  and  every  one  were 
content  to  stay  in  the  one  where  he  found  himself  at  the  beginning, 
then  the  game  would  be  impossible.  It  is  well  that  this  never 
happens.  Nature  looks  after  that.  When  things  are  too  homoge- 
neous she  breaks  them  up  into  new  and  amazing  kinds  of  heteroge- 
neity. It  is  a  good  game,  and  one  learns  to  like  it  after  he  enters  into 
the  spirit  of  it. — Samuel  McChord  Crothers. 

The  following  paragraph  is  developed  chiefly  by  repetition; 
but  the  topic  sentence  contains  a  contrast,  which  is  continued 
in  each  repetition  of  the  idea  throughout  the  paragraph: 

In  every  age  we  shall  find  the  true  gentleman — that  is,  the  man 
who  represents  the  best  ideal  of  his  own  time,  and  we  shall  find  the 
mimicry  of  him,  the  would-be  gentleman  who  copies  the  form  while 
ignorant  of  the  substance.  These  two  characters  furnish  the  ma- 
terial, on  the  one  hand  for  the  romancer,  and  on  the  other  for  the 
satirist.  If  there  had  been  no  real  gentlemen,  the  epics,  the  solemn 
tragedies,  and  the  stirring  tales  of  chivalry  would  have  remained 
unwritten;  and  if  there  had  been  no  pretended  gentlemen,  the 
humorist  would  have  lost  many  a  pleasure.  Always  the  contrasted 
characters  are  on  the  stage  together;  simple  dignity  is  followed  by 
strutting  pomposity,  and  after  the  hero  the  braggart  swaggers  and 
storms.  So  ridicule  and  admiration  bear  rule  by  turns. 

—Samuel  McChord  Crothers. 

There  should  be  a  reason  not  only  for  the  presence  but  also 
for  the  position  of  every  sentence  in  the  paragraph.  If  its 
exact  contribution  to  the  thought  cannot  be  explained,  it 
should  be  cut  out  as  unnecessary  or  irrelevant;  if  its  exact 
connection  with  the  preceding  and  following  sentences  cannot 
be  explained,  it  should  be  better  articulated  or  moved  into 
a  better  position.  In  the  successful  paragraph  the  thought 
sweeps  forward  from  sentence  to  sentence  without  a  break. 

ASSIGNMENT 

1.  Analyze  fully  the  development  of  the  following  paragraphs: 

(1)  "Rodright's  goods  are  to  be  found  in  all  countries  of  the 
world  both  savage  and  civilized,  the  only  place  where  you  cannot 


130  THE  WRITING  OF  ENGLISH 

obtain  them  being  the  city  where  they  are  manufactured.  Observe 
those  three  innocent  little  dots  at  the  foot  of  the  exquisite  bronze 
Buddha  which  you  purchased  for  twenty  pounds  from  that  un- 
impeachable dealer  in  Yokohama.  They  are  the  trade-mark  of 
Rodright  &  Co.,  Limited,  and  may  be  taken  to  mean  that  the  price 
of  production  was  half  a  crown.  Or  turn  to  that  beautiful  old 
grandfather  clock  in  the  Sheraton  case,  the  envy  of  all  your  friends 
as  they  hang  their  fur  coats  in  your  vestibule;  recall  the  reluctance 
of  the  old  cottager  to  part  with  his  heirloom,  and  the  tears  he  shed, 
and  the  shame  you  felt  as  you  handed  him  seven  five-pound  notes; 
and  then  take  a  strong  magnifying  glass  and  look  for  three  minute 
dots  in  the  lower  left-hand  corner  of  the  clock  face.  Or  take  the 
set  of  silver  buttons  which  aroused  your  cupidity  as  they  gleamed 
on  the  waistcoat  of  the  peasant  who  rowed  you  across  the  Norwegian 
fjord.  Was  it  not  something  of  a  Vandalism  to  bribe  the  old  fellow 
to  cut  them  off;  and  was  it  altogether  fair  to  conceal  from  him  that 
they  were  precious  Danish  coins  of  the  seventh  century?  But 
never  mind;  they  now  adorn  your  wife's  evening  dress;  and  there 
are  three  dots  on  the  edge  of  every  one  of  them." — L.  P.  Jacks. 

(2)  "  In  the  commerce  of  ideas  there  must  be  reciprocity.    We  will 
not  deal  with  one  who  insists  that  the  balance  of  trade  shall  always 
be  in  his  favor.     Moreover  there  must  be  a  spice  of  incertitude 
about  the  transaction.    The  real  joy  of  the  intellectual  traffic  comes 
when  we  sail  away  like  the  old  merchant  adventurers  in  search  of  a 
market.    There  must  be  no  prosaic  bills  of  exchange:  it  must  be 
primitive  barter.    We  have  a  choice  cargo  of  beads  which  we  are 
willing  to  exchange  for  frankincense  and  ivory.    If  on  some  strange 
coast  we  should  meet  simple-minded  people  who  have  only  wam- 
pum, perhaps  even  then  we  might  make  a  trade." — S.  M.  Crothers. 

(3)  "One  very  serious  drawback  to  our  pleasure  in  conversation 
with  a  too  wrell-informed  person  is  the  nervous  strain  that  is  in- 
volved.   We  are  always  wondering  what  will  happen  when  he  comes 
to  the  end  of  his  resources.    After  listening  to  one  who  discourses 
with  surprising  accuracy  upon  any  particular  topic,  we  feel  a  deli- 
cacy in  changing  the  subject.    It  seems  a  mean  trick  like  suddenly 
removing  the  chair  on  which  a  guest  is  about  to  sit  down  for  the 
evening.     With  one  who  is  interested  in  a  great  many  things  he 
knows  little  about  there  is  no  such  difficulty.     If  he  has  passed 
the  first  flush  of  youth,  it  no  longer  embarrasses  him  to  be  caught 
now  and  then  in  a  mistake;  indeed  your  correction  is  welcomed 
as  an  agreeable  interruption,  and  serves  as  a  starting  point  for  a 
new  series  of  observations." — Samuel  McChord  Crothers. 

(4)  "Humor  implies  mental  alertness  and  power  of  discrimina- 
tion [transition  sentence   connecting   with  preceding  paragraph]. 
It  also  implies  a  hospitality  toward  all  the  differences  that  are 
recognized.     Psychologists  speak  of  the  Association  of  Ideas.     It 


THE  PARAGRAPH  131 

is  a  pleasant  thought,  but  it  is,  in  reality,  difficult  to  induce  Ideas 
to  associate  in  a  neighborly  way.  In  many  minds  the  different 
groups  are  divided  by  conventional  lines,  and  there  are  aristocratic 
prejudices  separating  the  classes  from  the  masses.  The  Working 
Hypothesis,  honest  son  of  toil  that  he  is,  does  not  expect  so  much 
as  a  nod  of  recognition  from  the  High  Moral  Principle  who  walks 
by  in  his  Sunday  clothes.  The  steady  Habit  does  not  associate 
with  the  high-bred  Sentiment.  They  do  not  belong  to  the  same 
set.  Only  in  the  mind  of  the  humorist  is  there  a  true  democracy. 
Here  everybody  knows  everybody.  Even  the  priggish  Higher 
Thought  is  not  allowed  to  enjoy  a  sense  of  superiority.  Plain  Com- 
mon Sense  slaps  him  on  the  back,  calls  him  by  his  first  name,  and 
bids  him  not  make  a  fool  of  himself." — Samuel  McChord  Crothers. 

(5)  "But  after  being  awakened  to  the  sin  of  romance,  I  saw  that 
to  read  a  novel  merely  for  recreation  is  not  permissible.  The  reader 
must  be  put  upon  oath,  and  before  he  allows  himself  to  enjoy  any 
incident  must  swear  that  everything  is  exactly  true  to  life  as  he 
has  seen  it.  All  vagabonds  and  sturdy  vagrants  who  have  no  visi- 
ble means  of  support,  in  the  present  order  of  things,  are  to  be  driven 
out  of  the  realm  of  well-regulated  fiction.  Among  these  are  included 
all  knights  in  armor;  all  rightful  heirs  with  a  strawberry  mark;  all 
horsemen,  solitary  or  otherwise;  all  princes  in  disguise;  all  persons 
who  are  in  the  habit  of  saying  "prithee,"  or  Odzooks,"  or  "by 
my  halidome;"  all  fair  ladies  who  have  no  irregularities  of  feature 
and  no  realistic  incoherencies  of  speech;  all  lovers  who  fall  in  love 
at  first  sight,  and  are  married  at  the  end  of  the  book  and  live  happily 
ever  after;  all  witches,  fortune-tellers,  and  gipsies;  all  spotless 
heroes  and  deep-dyed  villains;  all  pirates,  buccaneers,  North 
American  Indians  with  a  taste  for  metaphysics;  all  scouts,  hunters, 
trappers,  and  other  individuals  who  do  not  wear  store  clothes. 
According  to  this  decree,  all  readers  are  forbidden  to  aid  and  abet 
these  persons,  or  to  give  them  shelter  in  their  imagination.  A 
reader  who  should  incite  a  writer  of  fiction  to  romance  would  be 
held  as  accessory  before  the  fact." — Samuel  McChord  Crothers. 

2.  Analyze  the  paragraph  development  of  the  passages  on  pp. 
116  and  117  of  this  book. 

3.  Bring  to  class  six  paragraphs  which  seem  to  you  faulty  in 
development.     You   may  take  them  from  book,   newspaper,   or 
magazine.     Discuss  in  class  methods  by  which  they  might  be  im- 
proved; and  rewrite  them. 

4.  Look  over  your  papers  written  this  year  in  any  subject,  and 
choose  one  that  seems  to  you  faulty  in  its  paragraphing.    Correct 
it  as  best  you  can,  and  bring  it  to  class  for  further  suggestions 
from  the  instructor  and  students.     If  you  cannot  find  paragraph 
errors  in  your  work,  choose  a  long  paper  and  write  in  the  margin 


132  THE  WRITING  OF  ENGLISH 

opposite  each  paragraph  all  the  methods  of  development  used  in 
it.    This  study  may  show  you  unsuspected  faults. 

5.  Name  the  methods  of  development  that  suggest  themselves 
for  single  paragraphs  on  each  of  the  following  subjects: 

(1)  Swallows'  nests. 

(2)  The  intelligence  of  collies. 

(3)  We  should  (or  should  not)  have  a  standing  army. 

(4)  Building  a  camp  fire. 

(5)  The  effect  of  music  on  animals. 

(6)  Why  fruit  should  be  sold  by  weight. 

(7)  Blucher  and  Wellington  at  Waterloo. 

(8)  Navajo  blankets. 

(9)  The  importance  of  Tampico. 

(10)  Why  railway  terminals  should  be  electrified. 

(11)  Formal  and  landscape  gardens. 

(12)  Is  democracy  a  failure? 

4.  STRUCTURAL  DEVICES 

While  sentences  may  often  be  sufficiently  articulated  by 
their  thought  content,  there  are  certain  structural  devices 
which  help  to  knit  them  together,  and  which  at  the  same 
time  direct  the  reader's  attention  to  the  relationships  be- 
tween them.  These  devices  thus  serve  a  double  purpose. 
Much  use  of  them  results  in  clearness;  too  much  use,  in 
formality.  They  are  most  needed  in  the  expression  of  com- 
plex or  subtle  exposition  and  argument.  In  general,  you 
should  use  them  to  correct  your  natural  tendencies  in  ex- 
pression. If  your  writing  tends  to  be  stiff  and  formal,  avoid 
the  formal  connectives,  and  learn  to  make  reference  words 
articulate  your  sentences.  If  your  writing  tends  to  be  loose- 
jointed  and  incoherent,  lean  heavily  upon  formal  connectives 
until  you  have  corrected  the  fault. 

The  most  obvious  method  of  stating  directly  the  thought 
relation  between  two  sentences  is  by  the  use  of  coordinating 
conjunctions.  Of  these,  and — greatly  overworked  by  inexpe- 
rienced writers — merely  ties  together  a  series  of  similar  ideas; 
but,  however,  nevertheless,  notvrithstanding,  yet,  introduce  the 


THE  PARAGRAPH  133 

idea  of  contrast;  therefore,  for,  and  because  show  the  relation 
of  cause  and  effect. 

Another  method  of  connection  by  direct  statement  is  by 
the  use  of  transitional  adverbs  (words  and  phrases),  which 
show  many  kinds  of  relationship  between  the  sentence  in 
which  they  stand  and  the  one  before.  Again,  first,  second, 
next,  etc.,  indicate  a  series;  for  example,  for  instance,  show  that 
the  second  sentence  illustrates  the  first;  accordingly,  and  for 
this  reason,  hence,  and  thence,  show  that  the  second  is  the 
result  of  the  first;  at  any  rate  marks  a  concession;  on  the  other 
hand  shows  contrast;  indeed,  in  truth,  surely,  certainly,  nat- 
urally, of  course,  are  used  for  emphasis;  by  the  way  makes 
the  second  sentence  parenthetical;  to  sum  up  and  in  a  word 
indicate  that  the  second  is  a  summary  of  the  first. 

All  these  are  useful  expressions,  but  they  must  not  be  over- 
worked. If  the  same  connective  or  transition  word  appears 
often,  it  gives  an  effect  of  intolerable  monotony,  as  when  a 
young  college  professor  was  observed  by  a  diligent  student 
to  use  the  phrase  "of  course"  forty-seven  times  within  a 
single  class  period.  But  even  when  the  phrases  are  varied, 
they  call  attention  to  the  joints  between  the  sentences,  and 
when  they  are  too  prominent,  they  suggest  a  person  who  is  all 
knees  and  elbows. 

A  transitional  clause,  such  as  you  may  say,  you  may  ask, 
it  is  true,  etc.,  may  sometimes  be  introduced  parenthetically 
into  a  sentence;  but  the  effect  of  thus  forcing  a  comment  on 
the  sentence  itself,  tends  toward  formality. 

When,  however,  formal  transition  words,  phrases,  or 
clauses,  are  desirable  for  the  sake  of  clearness,  the  stiffness 
that  they  tend  to  cause  can  be  minimized  by  giving  them 
subordinate  positions  within  the  sentence.  They  then  serve 
as  reminders  without  throwing  too  much  emphasis  upon  the 
method  of  joining. 

The  trouble  with  statistics,  strange  to  say,  often  lies  in  the  very 
accuracy  with  which  the  figures  are  given. 


134  THE  WRITING  OF  ENGLISH 

Figures  themselves,  however,  are  often  less  emphatic  than  other 
methods  of  expression. 

A  third  method  of  showing  thought  relationship  between 
sentences  is  reference.  By  reference  is  meant  the  use  of 
an  expression  that  inevitably  carries  the  mind  of  the  reader 
or  listener  back  to  earlier  words  or  phrases  so  that  he  feels 
the  relationship  between  them.  Reference  words  in  a  par- 
agraph should  stand  out  like  the  piers  of  a  bridge  over  which 
the  thought  passes  from  sentence  to  sentence. 

The  most  obvious  reference  word  is  the  pronoun.  As  the 
relative  pronoun  makes  for  close-knit  structure  within  the 
sentence,  so  the  use  of  personal  or  demonstrative  pronouns 
all  referring  to  the  same  antecedent  may  bind  together  all 
the  sentences  in  a  paragraph: 

One  of  the  most  interesting  mechanical  devices  used  in  the  War 
is  the  tank.  This  machine  is  also  called  the  caterpillar.  It  can 
crawl  over  or  through  every  sort  of  obstruction. 

In  the  following  paragraph  the  recurrence  of  he  and  his, 
not  only  in  each  sentence  but  in  almost  every  clause,  gives  a 
strongly  unified  impression. 

Thoreau's  thin,  penetrating,  big-nosed  face,  even  in  a  bad  wood- 
cut, conveys  some  hint  of  the  limitations  of  his  character.  With 
his  almost  acid  sharpness  of  insight,  with  his  almost  animal  dexterity 
in  act,  there  went  none  of  that  large,  unconscious  geniality  of  the 
world's  heroes.  He  was  not  easy,  not  ample,  not  urbane,  not  even 
kind;  his  enjoyment  was  hardly  smiling,  or  the  smile  was  not  broad 
enough  to  be  convincing;  he  had  no  waste  lands  nor  kitchen-midden 
in  his  nature,  but  was  all  improved  and  sharpened  to  a  point. 

— Stevenson. 

While  the  pronoun  exists  for  the  express  purpose  of  ref- 
erence, other  words  or  even  phrases  may  be  repeated  in  a 
succession  of  sentences  within  the  paragraph  in  order  to 
bridge  the  thought. 

In  regard  to  this  repetition  two  principles  must  be  noted. 
The  first  is  that  if  the  repeated  expression  is  striking  enough 


THE  PARAGRAPH  135 

to  attract  attention  to  itself,  it  need  not  be  repeated  often. 
The  deeper  the  impression  it  makes,  the  further  it  will 
"carry"  over  the  intervening  words;  that  is,  unusual  words 
or  phrases  will  be  felt  as  connective  at  longer  intervals  than 
commonplace  expressions: 

"What  talk  do  we  commonly  hear  about  the  contrast  between 
college  education  and  the  education  which  business  or  technical 
or  professional  schools  confer?  The  college  education  is  called  higher 
because  it  is  supposed  to  be  so  general  and  so  disinterested.  At 
the  schools,  etc." 

If  you  are  in  doubt  as  to  whether  your  word  or  phrase  will 
actually  be  realized  as  connective,  you  may  quote  it,  even 
though  you  are  quoting  it  from  yourself;  the  quotation  marks 
will  call  enough  attention  to  it  to  make  the  connection  hold. 
In  the  passage  given  below,  such  a  phrase  is  taken  from  a 
quotation  from  another  writer;  but  also,  it  is  made  in  this 
case  to  carry  even  beyond  the  limits  of  one  paragraph  into 
the  next: 

Darwin  .  .  .  aptly  says: — "At  sea,  a  person's  eye  being  six  feet 
above  the  surface  of  the  water,  his  horizon  is  two  miles  and  four- 
fifths  distant.  In  like  manner,  the  more  level  the  plain,  the  more 
nearly  does  the  horizon  approach  within  these  narrow  limits  and 
this,  in  my  opinion,  entirely  destroys  the  grandeur  which  one  would 
have  imagined  that  a  vast  plain  would  have  possessed."  1 

I  remember  my  first  experience  of  a  hill,  after  having  been  al- 
ways shut  within  "these  narrow  limits." — W.  H.  Hudson. 

Without  quotation  marks  it  is  doubtful  whether  we  should 
have  remembered  that  the  phrase  was  used  before. 

This  device  is  occasionally  effective;  but  it  must  be  used 
with  care.  The  danger  is  that  it  may  tempt  one  to  write 
loosely  connected  sentences  when  a  better  result  would  have 
come  from  the  use  of  more  striking  phrases  or  shorter  inter- 
vals between  them. 

The  second  principle  in  regard  to  repetition  as  a  device 
1  The  author  means  "would  possess." 


136  THE  WRITING  OF  ENGLISH 

for  connecting  sentences  is  that  the  position  in  the  sentence  of 
the  repeated  word  or  phrase  strongly  affects  its  connective 
value.  The  most  close-knit  structure  possible  is  that  in  which 
identical  words  or  phrases  are  brought  together  by  being 
placed  at  the  end  of  one  sentence  and  the  beginning  of  the 
next.  Compare,  for  instance,  the  difference  in  the  knitting 
together  of  the  two  following  arrangements  of  sentence 
groups: 

Research  is  the  only  way  to  achieve  scholarship.  I  mean  by 
research  independent  investigation  of  an  unsettled  problem. 

The  only  way  to  achieve  scholarship  is  by  research.  By  research 
I  mean  independent  investigation  of  an  unsettled  problem. 

In  using  repetition  as  a  connective  device,  it  is  not  always 
necessary  to  use  the  same  words.  Synonyms,  or  any  other 
expressions  that  suggest  the  idea  that  is  to  be  carried  on,  may 
be  used  with  good  effect.  In  the  following  paragraph  the 
idea  of  earthworm  is  continued  in  engine,  and  that  of  smooth 
fat  fields  in  leavening  and  leveling: 

The  greater  activity  and  abundance  of  the  earthworm,  as  dis- 
closed by  Darwin,  probably  has  much  to  do  with  the  smoothness  and 
fatness  of  those  fields,  when  contrasted  with  our  own.  This  little 
yet  mighty  engine  is  much  less  instrumental  in  leavening  and  leveling 
the  soil  in  New  England  than  in  Old. — John  Burroughs. 

In  the  following  paragraph  the  italicized  words  "carry" 
a  long  distance: 

It  is  the  narrowness  of  the  valley  and  the  nearness  of  the  high 
downs  standing  over  it  on  either  side,  with,  at  some  points  the 
memorials  of  antiquity  carved  on  their  smooth  surfaces,  the  bar- 
rows and  lynchetts  or  terraces,  and  the  vast  green  earthworks  crown- 
ing their  summit.  Up  here  on  the  turf,  even  with  the  lark  singing 
his  shrill  music  in  the  blue  heavens,  you  are  with  the  prehistoric 
dead,  yourself  for  the  time  one  of  that  innumerable,  unsubstantial 
multitude,  invisible  in  the  sun,  so  that  the  sheep  travelling  as  they 
graze,  and  the  shepherd  following  them,  pass  through  their  ranks 
without  suspecting  their  presence.  And  from  that  elevation  you 
look  down  upon  the  life  of  to-day — the  visible  life,  so  brief  in  the 
individual,  which,  like  the  swift  silver  stream  beneath,  yet  flows 


THE  PARAGRAPH  137 

on  continuously  from  age  to  age  and  for  ever.  And  even  as  you  look 
down  you  hear,  at  that  distance,  the  bell  of  the  little  hidden  church 
tower  telling  the  hour  of  noon,  and  quickly  following,  a  shout  of 
freedom  and  joy  from  many  shrill  voices  of  children  just  released 
from  school. — W.  H.  Hudson. 

Finally,  a  phrase,  clause,  or  an  entire  sentence,  summing 
up  the  thought  of  a  paragraph,  may  be  used  at  the  beginning 
of  the  next  paragraph  in  order  to  keep  clearly  before  the 
reader  the  movement  of  the  thought: 

But  when  art  and  science  and  philosophy  have  done  their  best 
[this  sums  up  the  preceding  paragraph],  there  is  a  great  deal  of 
valuable  material  left  over  [this  introduces  the  new  paragraph]. 

.  .  .   There  it  [truth]  stands  in  all  its  shameless  actuality  asking, 
"What  do  you  make  of  me?" 

Just  here  comes  the  beneficent  mission  of  humor.  .  .  . 

I  have  said  that  one  may  be  a  true  poet  without  having  any  very 
important  thought  to  communicate  [summary  of  earlier  paragraph], 
but  it  must  be  said  that  most  great  poets  have  been  serious  thinkers 
as  well  [new  paragraph  topic]. — Samuel  McChord  Crothers. 

ASSIGNMENT 

1.  Mark  all   the  structural   devices   for  articulating  sentences 
within  the  paragraphs  on  p.  130  of  this  book.    In  class  discussion 
try  the  effect  of  omitting  or  changing  the  devices.     Decide  where 
they  are  successfully  used,  and  where  they  might  be  added  or 
omitted  to  the  improvement  of  the  text. 

2.  Read  the  passages  quoted  on  pp.  116,  125-131  of  this  book, 
and  decide  which  writers  are  most  successful  in  perfect  and  unob- 
trusive articulation  of  sentences.     Come  to  class  ready  to  defend 
your  opinions. 

3.  Among  papers  of  your  own  written  earlier  this  year  on  any  sub- 
ject, find  one  which  now  seems  to  you  crude  in  its  use  of  connective 
devices.    Do  what  you  can  to  improve  it,  and  submit  the  results 
in  class.    If  necessary  rewrite  the  paper.    You  could  scarcely  have 
better  practice. 

4.  Copy  from  a  book  or  article  as  many  different  Ways  of  con- 
necting paragraphs,  and  sentences  within  a  paragraph,  as  you  can 
find  in  two  hours. 


CHAPTER  Vm 
PURPOSE  AND  PROCESS  IN  WRITING 

THE  fundamental  purpose  of  all  writing  as  of  all  speech  is 
the  expression  of  some  aspect  of  experience  or  of  truth.  As 
a  child  you  were  content  to  tell  what  happened,  and  how  it 
looked  when  it  happened;  this  you  did  by  the  process  of  narra- 
tion mixed  with  description.  But  very  soon  you  went  be- 
yond this :  you  desired  to  explain  how  things  were  done,  why 
things  were  as  they  were,  how  you  felt  about  them;  you  began 
to  use  exposition.  And  when  your  presentation  of  truth  was 
challenged,  you  began  to  defend  it,  using  the  process  of 
argument. 

Now  observe.  Your  purpose  may  be  to  tell  a  story — 
nothing  more;  but  as  soon  as  you  begin  to  do  this,  you  find 
yourself  doing  more.  You  cannot  use  more  than  a  few  words 
before  you  begin  to  describe  and  to  explain: 

"  He  walked  down  the  street  "  is  pure  narrative. 

"  He  walked  quickly  down  the  shabby  street "  contains  two 
descriptive  words. 

"  He  walked  quickly — as  poor  clerk's  always  do — down  the 
shabby  street  where  he  had  always  lived"  contains  two  ex- 
pository clauses. 

The  truth  is  that  these  processes  of  expression  are  so  inter- 
twined in  all  our  utterance  that  it  is  only  by  a  deliberate  effort 
of  analysis  that  we  separate  them  at  all.  On  the  other  hand, 
in  every  piece  of  writing  one  process  is  dominant  and  the 
others  are- subsidiary;  and  this  dominance  is  quite  independ- 
ent of  the  purpose  of  the  writing.  This  becomes  clear  from 
observing  a  few  cases: 

Kipling's  Rikki-Tikki-Tavi  is  the  story  of  a  mongoose  who 


PURPOSE  AND  PROCESS  IN  WRITING  139 

killed  two  cobras  and  saved  the  lives  of  a  family.  But  the 
story  is  developed  by  a  series  of  expositions  of  the  habits  of 
the  mongoose,  the  cobra,  the  tailor-bird,  and  the  rat,  who  are 
the  characters.  And  this  exposition  is  helped  out  at  every 
step  by  description. 

Toomai  of  the  Elephants,  on  the  other  hand,  which  is  the 
story  of  a  little  boy  who  witnessed  the  nocturnal  dance  of 
elephants  in  the  jungle,  is  from  the  very  nature  of  the  sub- 
ject, almost  entirely  description. 

Stevenson's  The  Sire  de  Maletroit's  Door,  which  tells  how 
by  reason  of  mistaken  identity  a  man  is  forced  to  choose 
between  marriage  with  an  unknown  woman  and  immediate 
death,  is  predominantly  narrative;  but  his  A  Lodging  for  the 
Night,  which  tells  how  the  poet  Villon,  who  is  also  a  thief, 
receives  shelter  and  food,  in  time  of  need,  from  an  old  soldier, 
although  it  leans  heavily  upon  description,  is  fundamentally 
an  argument  as  to  what  honor  is. 

So  also  in  novels  we  find  that  sometimes  narration  is  an 
end  in  itself,  sometimes  a  mere  means  to  serve  a  further  pur- 
pose. Stevenson's  Kidnapped  and  Hardy's  Under  the  Green- 
wood Tree  are  alike  in  that  both  are  developed  largely  by 
means  of  description;  but  the  purpose  of  Kidnapped  is  purely 
narrative — adventures  are  told  for  their  Own  sake;  while 
the  purpose  of  Under  the  Greenwood  Tree  is  primarily  ex- 
pository— an  interpretation  is  attempted  of  the  life  of  the 
country  people  of  Wessex.  In  many  of  Dickens's  novels, 
the  narrative  is  a  mere  cloak  for  the  presentation  of  argument : 
Bleak  House,  for  example,  attacks  the  abuses  of  the  Court  of 
Chancery,  which,  as  a  result,  were  actually  to  some  extent 
reformed. 

The  essay  is  fundamentally  expository  in  its  purpose;  but 
studies  of  nature  and  character  depend  much  upon  descrip- 
tion, and  are  frequently  strung  on  a  thread  of  narrative;  while 
an  essay  of  any  type  is  likely  to  drift  into  argument  at  any  mo- 
ment— as  soon  as  the  opinion  expounded  is  open  to  challenge. 


140  THE  WRITING  OF  ENGLISH 

Thus  far  we  have  been  speaking  of  creative  writing — 
literature.  But  in  the  scientific  expression  of  truth  we  find 
these  four  processes  scarcely  less  intertwined.  It  is  true  that 
here  the  fundamental  purpose  is  always  exposition  or  ar- 
gument: exposition  of  accepted  truth;  argument  for  or 
against  aspects  of  truth  not  generally  recognized.  It  is  also 
true  that  in  pure  mathematics,  logic,  and  metaphysics,  the 
presentation  of  material  is  entirely  by  the  process  of  reason- 
ing; but  the  moment  that  the  sciences  come  to  deal  with  the 
objective  world,  we  find  them  depending  upon  observa- 
tion, which  involves  description,  and  upon  experiment,  which 
involves  narration.  From  these  two  processes  as  bases  they 
proceed  to  the  methods  of  exposition.  History  for  children 
simplifies  to  almost  pure  narration;  geography,  to  almost 
pure  description;  but  history  and  geography  for  mature 
minds  are  fundamentally  exposition,  with  a  large  element 
of  narration  and  description  still  included,  and  no  little  argu- 
ment superimposed. 

If,  now,  it  is  clear  that  these  four  processes  are  continually 
found  in  all  sorts  of  combinations,  that  each  in  turn  may  be  a 
purpose  in  itself  and  may  subserve  the  purpose  of  another, 
you  will  see  that  in  order  to  use  them  intelligently  in  your 
writing,  you  must  isolate  each  and  study  its  technique — 
see  how  it  works  without  reference  to  the  others;  and  then 
you  must  study  the  various  ways  of  combining  them  all  to 
suit  your  purpose  as  you  write  story,  essay,  article,  and  so  on. 

The  following  assignment  is  to  help  you  to  isolate  these 
processes  as  you  find  them  in  combination;  and  to  determine 
when  one  is  made  to  serve  the  purpose  of  another. 

ASSIGNMENT 

1.  In  each  of  the  selections  on  pp.  103, 105, 125-130  above,  what  ia 
the  fundamental  purpose?  What  is  the  predominant  process?  what 
processes,  if  any,  are  subsidiary?  You  will  answer  these  questions 
by  asking  others:  Is  your  interest  more  in  what  happened,  or  how 


PURPOSE  AND  PROCESS  IN  WRITING  141 

it  looked  while  it  was  happening?  Or  are  you  primarily  inter- 
ested in  the  meaning  of  it?  Next,  read  aloud  in  class  several  para- 
graphs from  each  selection,  with  pauses  after  each  sentence  to  de- 
cide: Does  this  tell  merely  what  happened?  or  picture  it  as  it 
happened?  or  explain  how  or  why  it  was  done  as  it  was?  When  you 
have  carried  this  work  far  enough,  you  will  distinguish  between  the 
author's  purpose,  on  the  one  hand,  and  his  predominant  process 
on  the  other;  and  you  will  also  see  how  at  every  step  of  the  de- 
velopment, two  or  three  processes,  and  sometimes  all  four,  are 
intertwined. 

2.  Read  or  listen  to  the  reading  of  one  or  more  of  the  following 
stories,  and   discuss  the  amount   of   description,  exposition,  and 
argument  in  each.    Then  decide  whether  it  was  written  merely  for 
the  sake  of  the  story,  or  to  exemplify  some  aspect  of  truth,  or  to 
present  an  argument:  De  Maupassant,   The  Necklace;  Merim^e, 
The  Venus  of  IIU;  Kipling,  The  Miracle  of  Punin  Bhagat,  The  Man 
Who  Would  be  King,  The  Man  Who  Was,  The  Brushwood  Boy, 
"They";  O.  Henry,  The  Theory  and  the  Hound;  Poe,  The  T ell-Tale 
Heart,  The  Black  Cat,  The  Fall  of  the  House  of  Usher,  The  Gold  Bug. 

3.  Discuss  the  use  of  description  in  such  of  the  following  novels  as 
you  have  read:  Swift,  Gulliver's  Travels;  Defoe,  Robinson  Crusoe; 
Blackmore,  Lorna  Doone;  Stevenson,    Treasure  Island,  and    The 
Merry  Men;  Hawthorne,  The  House  of  the  Seven  Gables,  and  The 
Marble  Faun;  Mrs.  Gaskell,  Cranford;  Dickens,  A  Tale  of  Two  Cities; 
Thackeray,  Vanity  Fair. 

4.  Spend  two  hours  examining  a  textbook  that  you  are  now 
using,  and  note  pages  on  which  you  find  almost  pure  narration; 
others  on  which  you  find  almost  pure  description;  still  others,  on 
which  you  find  almost  pure  explanation,  and,  if  possible,  argument. 
Discuss  in  class  as  many  kinds  of  textbooks  as  possible. 


CHAPTER  IX 
NARRATION 

1.  LIMITATION  OF  MATERIAL 

NARRATION  is  the  skeleton  of  history,  biography,  fiction, 
and  of  certain  types  of  the  essay.  However  much  they  are 
built  up  and  filled  out  by  means  of  description  and  exposition, 
it  is  narration  that  makes  them  what  they  are. 

Narration  is  constructed  on  the  principle  of  chronology 
or  time  sequence.  In  its  simplest  form  it  is  found  in  the  Old 
English  Chronicle,  in  which  all  sorts  of  events  are  jotted  down 
together,  forming  a  sequence  only  because  of  the  chronological 
arrangement  of  the  years,  thus: 

773.  In  this  year  a  red  Christ's  cross  showed  in  the  sky  after  sun- 
set, and  in  this  year  the  Mercians  and  Kentish  men  fought  at 
Otford,  and  wonderful  snakes  were  seen  in  Sussex. 

This  is  one  kind  of  narration,  events  entered  year  after  year 
without  logical  relationship. 

Another  kind  is  illustrated  in  the  talk  of  Miss  Bates,  a 
character  in  Jane  Austen's  Emma,  who  tells  a  story  by  asso- 
ciating everything  that  she  can  think  of  at  the  moment  about 
a  common  centre  of  interest,  in  the  order  in  which  she  hap- 
pens to  remember  it,  thus : 

"  I  was  so  astonished  when  she  first  told  me  what  she  had  been 
saying  to  Mrs.  Elton,  and  when  Mrs.  Elton  at  the  same  moment 
came  congratulating  me  upon  it.  It  was  before  tea — stay — no, 
it  could  not  be  before  tea,  because  we  were  just  going  to  cards — 
and  yet  it  was  before  tea,  because  I  remember  thinking — oh  no, 
now  I  recollect,  now  I  have  it;  something  happened  before  tea,  but 
not  that.  Mr.  Elton  was  called  out  of  the  room  before  tea,  old 
John  Abdy's  son  wanted  to  speak  with  him.  Poor  old  John,  I  have 
142 


NARRATION  143 

a  great  regard  for  him;  he  was  clerk  to  my  poor  father  twenty- 
seven  years;  and  now,  poor  old  man,  he  is  bed-ridden,  and  very 
poorly  with  the  rheumatic  gout  in  his  joints — I  must  go  and  see 
him  to-day;  and  so  will  Jane,  I  am  sure,  if  she  gets  out  at  all.  And 
poor  John's  son  came  to  talk  to  Mr.  Elton  about  relief  from  the 
parish;  he's  very  well  to  do  himself,  you  know,  being  head  man  at 
the  Crown,  ostler,  and  everything  of  that  sort,  but  still  he  cannot 
keep  his  father  without  some  help;  and  so  ...  That  was  what 
happened  before  tea.  It  was  after  tea  that  Jane  spoke  to  Mrs. 
Elton." 

The  art  of  narration  involves  both  methods :  there  must  be 
a  continuous  line  of  events  to  which  the  reader's  attention  is 
held,  and  these  must  be  arranged  in  some  definite  order  of 
time.  The  chronicler  lacked  continuity  of  subject;  Miss 
Bates  continuity  of  time.  The  result  in  each  case  was  the 
introduction  of  irrelevant  material. 

To  narrate  well,  then,  you  must  do  two  things.  You  must 
first  single  out  from  the  enormous  complex  of  events  and 
facts  that  come  into  your  life  experience  a  group  that  can  be 
seen  to  belong  together  as  combined  in  the  life  of  an  individ- 
ual, a  family,  a  larger  social  group,  an  institution,  a  city,  a 
nation — and  you  must  then  arrange  these  events  in  such  an 
order  that  the  attention  is  continually  aware  of  a  definite 
progression  in  time  from  the  one  that  first  occurred  to  the 
last  that  is  included  in  the  chosen  group. 

These  processes  must  be  considered  separately. 

How  can  you  get  together  all  the  details  that  belong  in  a 
narrative  and  none  that  do  not?  The  process  may  be  re- 
garded as  a  gradual  elimination  of  the  unsuitable: 

1.  In  the  narrative  of  fact  the  natural  associations  of  men 
in  time  and  place  shut  out  an  enormous  amount  of  irrelevant 
material.  If  you  choose  to  write  a  biography  of  Milton,  you 
have  eliminated  by  your  mere  choice  the  enormous  number 
of  facts  that  are  not  related  to  your  subject.  In  fiction,  your 
choice  of  plot  eliminates  all  details  that  do  not  belong  to  your 
plot. 


144  THE  WRITING  OF  ENGLISH 

2.  Unless  you  have  volumes  of  space  and  years  of  time  at 
your  disposal,  you  must  reduce  your  material  much  further. 
Then  the  next  factor  is:  How  much  space  and  time  can  you 
give  to  this  subject?    In  a  paper  of  500  words,  you  will  have 
to  eliminate  altogether  the  greater  part  of  the  available  facts 
about  the  life  of  Milton. 

3.  The  actual  and  unavoidable  limitations  of  your  own 
knowledge  will  still  further  reduce  the  number  of  facts  at 
your  disposal.     You  cannot  write  a  personal  account  of  a 
battle  from  the  point  of  view  of  an  aviator,  a  man  in  the 
trenches,  and  an  officer  at  general  headquarters,  because  you 
cannot  be  in  three  places  at  once.    You  cannot  write  a  per- 
sonal account  of  the  Battle  of  Marathon  as  well  as  of  the 
Battle  of  the  Marne;  you  have  not  lived  in  both  times.    Phys- 
ical point  of  view,  then,  makes  your  line  of  facts  still  narrower. 
Moreover,  mental  point  of  view  also  affects  them.    A  chemist 
and  a  poet,  an  aristocrat  and  a  socialist,  a  lawyer  and  a 
soldier  and  a  doctor — each  will  choose,  out  of  material  pre- 
sented to  all,  the  facts  about  which  he  knows  most  and  in 
which  he  is  chiefly  interested.    And  since  the  possibilities  of 
an  individual  observer  are  thus  limited,  the  writer  must  be 
careful  not  to  shift  his  narrative  from  one  point  of  view  to 
another  without  clearly  indicating  the  shift. 

4.  But  this  is  not  all.    Nobody  ever  tells  a  story  acciden- 
tally or  unconsciously — that  is,  without  purpose.    Whatever 
the  purpose  may  be — whether  to  share  the  information,  in- 
terest, amusement,  or  philosophy,  that  we  have  derived  from 
observation  of  a  series  of  related  events,  or  whether  simply 
to  impress  the  world  with  our  ability  as  a  narrator — a  pur- 
pose of  some  sort  underlies  every  narrative  that  comes  into 
existence,  and  helps  to  determine  its  content.    A  humorous 
purpose  eliminates  tragedy,   a  philosophical  purpose  may 
eliminate  interesting  gossip,  a  purpose  of  being  interesting 
may  eliminate  informative  statistical  tables,  and  so  on.    Much 
material  is  shut  out  as  being  irrelevant  to  the  purpose  in  hand. 


NARRATION  145 

5.  Finally,  associated  with  purpose  yet  distinct  from  it, 
there  is  the  audience  to  be  considered.  A  narrative  intended 
for  children  necessarily  omits  much  that  would  be  included 
in  one  for  mature  readers;  a  history  of  a  war  written  for  mil- 
itary men  would  not  do  for  a  popular  magazine,  and  so  on. 

Summing  up,  we  may  say  that  the  first  essential  of  good 
narrative  is  to  shut  out  all  material  that  is  irrelevant;  and 
that  material  may  be  irrelevant  (1)  from  the  nature  of  the 
subject  itself,  (2)  from  the  limitations  of  space  and  time, 
(3)  from  the  physical  and  mental  point  of  view  of  the  nar- 
rator, (4)  from  the  purpose  in  hand,  and  (5)  from  the  point  of 
view  of  the  readers  for  whom  the  narrative  is  intended. 

The  second  essential  of  good  narrative  is  a  definite  time 
order;  that  is,  the  reader's  attention  must  be  kept  generally 
looking  forward  to  events  that  will  follow  in  time  those  on 
which  it  is  at  the  moment  focused.  However,  it  is  only  in  a 
very  simple  narrative  of  a  life  of  few  activities,  or  of  a  short 
space  of  time,  that  the  time  sequence  can  be  invariably 
followed;  as  soon  as  there  is  any  degree  of  complexity,  two 
other  time  arrangements  are  introduced. 

By  the  first,  the  string  of  events  is  held  fast  for  a  time 
while  a  short  backward  loop  is  made  to  gather  in  material 
that  at  an  earlier  stage  was  not  relevant,  or  material  having 
a  special  bearing  upon  the  particular  event  to  which  the  loop 
is  attached.  These  loops  are  most  frequently  found  at  the 
beginning:  a  striking  situation  is  introduced,  and  when  the 
reader's  interest  is  regarded  as  secure,  a  backward  loop  is 
made  to  gather  up  the  events  that  led  to  it.  And  at  intervals 
in  almost  any  narrative  of  fact  or  of  fiction  it  may  be  advisable 
to  introduce  in  a  loop  of  this  kind  material  that  does  not  have 
a  place  in  the  general  advance  of  the  story. 

By  the  second  method  a  complex  event  is  analyzed  into 
parallel  strands,  and  at  the  end  of  each  strand  of  events,  re- 
turn is  made  to  the  beginning  of  the  next.  Thus  a  history  of 
the  Renaissance  might  proceed  in  either  of  two  ways: 


146  THE  WRITING  OF  ENGLISH 

The  Renaissance  in  Italy,  France,  Germany,  and  England 

1.  13th  century 

2.  14th  century 

3.  15th  century 

4.  16th  century. 

Or: 

The  Renaissance  in  Europe,  13-16th  century 

1.  Italy,  13th-15th  century 

2.  France,  14th-16th  century 

3.  Germany,  15th-16th  century 

4.  England,  15th-16th  century. 

Obviously  the  second  arrangement  gives  a  clearer  impression. 
The  point  to  be  noted  is  that  a  complex  narrative  extends 
over  space  as  well  as  over  time;  and  the  sequence  must  be 
halted  until  all  the  spatial  elements  are  brought  into  line. 

ASSIGNMENT 

1.  Choose  five  of  the  following  subjects  which  you  think  could 
be  treated  with  some  success  in  a  paper  of  500-1000  words:  Milton's 
Political  Career;  the  History  of  Kentucky;   the  History  of  the 
Theater;  the  Life  of  John  Bunyan;  the  History  of  the  Writing  of 
The  Pilgrim's  Progress;  Dr.  Johnson's  Relations  with  Lord  Chester- 
field; How  Tennyson  Came  to  be  a  Lord;  My  Efforts  to  Make  a 
Garden;  The  Early  Colonies  in  Massachusetts;  the  Career  of  Alexan- 
der Hamilton;  the  Annexation  of  Alaska. 

2.  State  in  regard  to  each  of  the  subjects  chosen,  how  it  might 
and  should  be  limited  further.     Make  as  many  variations  of  each 
subject  as  possible;  and  reduce  each  to  its  lowest  terms. 

3.  Study  the  tables  of  contents  of  six  histories  or  biographies, 
and  make  notes  on  the  use  of  parallelism  and  "looping  back." 

4.  Discuss  the  limitations  of  subject-matter  suggested  by  each 
of  the  following  titles;  where  it  is  possible,  verify  your  conclusions 
in  regard  to  the  book: 

Bryce's  History  qf  the  American  Commonwealth;  Green's  History 
of  the  English  People;  Dickens's  Child's  History  of  England;  Stubbs's 
Constitutional  History  of  England;  Strickland's  Lives  of  the  Queens 
of  England;  Traill's  Social  England. 

5.  Collect  instances  of  the  "looping  back"  process  as  used  in 
fiction.    Note  when  it  occurs  at  the  beginning  of  a  story  and  when 


NARRATION  147 

later.  Use  stories  in  current  numbers  of  good  magazines.  You 
may  recall  illustrations  in  novels  that  you  have  read;  it  is  likely 
to  occur  in  the  explanation  of  a  mystery. 

6.  Relate  in  class  some  recent  experience  of  your  own,  to  see 
how  far  you  tell  it  progressively  and  how  often  you  have  to  go 
back  and  pick  up  dropped  threads. 

7.  Relate  in  two  or  three  minutes  the  plot  of  some  novel  that  is 
familiar  to  all  the  class,  to  see  how  far  you  tell  the  incidents  in  the 
order  in  which  they  should  come,  and  how  often  you  find  yourself 
saying  "Oh,  I  should  have  told  you  first.  .  .  ." 

8.  Decide  upon  some  novel  familiar  to  all  the  class,  and  in  200 
words  or  less  write  an  outline  of  its  plot  in  the  order  in  which  the 
incidents  are  related  in  the  book.     Do  this  from  memory,  and 
verify  by  referring  to  the  book.    Note  any  instances  of  "looping 
back"  that  may  occur. 


2.  SCALE  OF  TREATMENT 

When  you  have  determined  approximately  the  material 
that  belongs  to  your  narrative,  you  must  next  consider  how 
it  is  to  be  fitted  into  the  space  at  your  disposal.  Suppose, 
for  example,  you  are  asked  to  write  something  about  Milton 
in  1000  words,  and  that  your  paper  is  to  be  read  before  a 
club.  You  may  say  to  yourself:  "These  people  know  nothing 
about  Milton;  I'd  better  give  them  a  general  survey  of  his 
career."  Or  you  may  say:  "These  people  know  all  about 
Milton  as  a  poet;  I  will  write  about  his  career  as  a  patriot." 
In  the  first  case  you  will  have  far  more  facts  to  deal  with  than 
in  the  second;  you  will  have  to  condense  much  more  your 
treatment  of  each  fact;  your  paper  will  be  on  a  smaller  scale. 
Here  your  problem  is  not  so  much  one  of  elimination  as  one  of 
settling  the  relative  proportions  of  the  material  that  must  be 
included.  But  whether  your  scale  be  large  or  small,  all  the 
parts  of  your  narrative  must  be  planned  so  that  each  gets  the 
proportion  of  space  due  to  the  relative  importance  or  unim- 
portance of  each  idea. 

To  make  such  a  scale,  a  good  plan  is  to  begin  by  asking 


148  THE  WRITING  OF  ENGLISH 

yourself  the  following  questions :  Which  is  the  most  important 
aspect?  What  other  features  must  be  treated  in  a  general 
survey?  How  do  they  compare  in  importance  with  one  an- 
other and  with  the  leading  aspect?  How  much  space  must 
I  leave  for  the  main  aspect  in  order  that  it  shall  dominate? 
How  much  can  I  spare  for  each  of  the  others?  By  answering 
these  questions  your  scale  for  a  general  survey  of  Milton's 
career  would  approximate  this: 

1.  Parentage,  education,  and  travel  (100  words) 

2.  Early  career  as  poet  (200  words) 

3.  Career  as  patriot  (200  words) 

4.  Late  career  as  poet  (500  words) 

Without  such  a  preliminary  consideration  of  space  and  scale, 
your  paper  might  easily  take  some  such  distorted  form  as  this : 

1.  Parentage  (50  words) 

2.  Education  (200  words) 

3.  Travel  (100  words) 

4.  Early  career  as  poet  (300  words) 

5.  Career  as  patriot  (300  words) 

6.  Late  career  as  poet  (50  words) 

You  begin  on  too  large  a  scale,  give  half  your  paper  to  pre- 
liminaries, and  exceed  your  space  before  you  reach  your  most 
important  point,  and  so  are  obliged  to  deal  with  it  in  a  few 
hasty  words  at  the  end. 

It  is  only  by  a  mathematical  allotment  of  space  beforehand 
that  you  can  learn  to  proportion  the  parts  of  your  narrative 
so  that  the  whole  composition  is  on  the  scale  demanded  by 
your  space  limits. 

But,  you  may  ask,  how  shall  I  know  what  is  most  im- 
portant— what  needs  most  space?  In  every  group  of  asso- 
ciated events  certain  ones  stand  out  as  having  an  absolute 
and  permanent  importance;  in  Milton's  life,  for  instance,  the 
two  outstanding  facts  are  his  blindness  and  the  creation  of 
Paradise  Lost.  But  there  are  other  events  which  have 
shifting  values,  dependent  upon  the  narrator's  purpose,  his 


NARRATION  149 

point  of  view,  and  the  interests  of  his  audience;  these  are 
likely  to  throw  a  narrative  out  of  scale. 

In  the  Middle  Ages  when  people  had  more  time  than  they 
knew  what  to  do  with,  and  when  story-telling  was  one  means 
of  getting  rid  of  it,  there  were  many  tales  that  were  made 
almost  interminable  by  stringing  together  an  indefinite  series 
of  events  without  regard  to  their  relative  importance  or  un- 
importance. It  was  done  in  this  way: 

And  also  a  young  man,  who  did  not  know  about  the  dragon, 
went  out  of  a  ship,  and  went  through  the  isle  till  he  came  to  the 
castle,  and  came  into  the  cave;  and  went  on  till  he  found  a  chamber, 
and  there  he  saw  a  damsel  that  was  combing  her  hair  and  looking 
in  a  mirror.  .  .  . — Sir  John  de  Mandeville. 

Now  the  point  of  this  story  is  obviously  the  meeting  with  the 
dragon.  Why  need  we  be  told  in  detail  how  the  man  went 
through  the  isle?  The  account  can  be  reduced  more  than  one- 
fourth  and  gain  in  interest  if  these  unimportant  details  are 
omitted,  thus: 

And  also  a  young  man,  who  did  not  know  about  the  dragon, 
went  out  of  a  ship  to  the  castle,  where  in  a  chamber  of  the  cave 
he  saw  a  damsel  combing  her  hair  and  looking  in  a  mirror.  .  .  . 

But  suppose  the  point  of  the  story  was  not  what  happened 
when  the  man  met  the  dragon  but  how  he  discovered  the 
castle  and  overcame  obstacles  in  getting  to  it;  then  the 
omitted  details  must  be  put  back  and  emphasized:  how  he 
got  lost  on  his  way  through  the  isle,  how  he  was  dazed  by 
what  he  saw,  how  he  resisted  enchantment  in  the  cave,  etc. 
In  the  one  case,  the  details  are  to  be  taken  for  granted;  in 
the  other,  they  leap  into  prominence,  but,  as  Kipling  used  to 
say,  "That  is  another  story." 

The  careful  analysis  of  narrative  material,  to  observe  both 
the  gradations  of  scale  determined  by  space  limits  and  the 
adjustment  of  part  to  part  on  one  scale  of  treatment,  is  an 
admirable  way  to  get  an  idea  of  the  flexibility  of  the  materials 


150  THE  WRITING  OF  ENGLISH 

of  narration.  Such  an  analysis  may  be  written  in  sentence 
form  or  as  a  topical  outline;  but  it  should  be  made  on  cards, 
with  a  rough  estimate  of  the  number  of  words  given  to  each 
event  in  the  narrative. 

Perhaps  equally  valuable  is  practice  in  making  abstracts 
of  both  history  and  fiction,  in  order  to  see  what  material  is 
eliminated  as  the  scale  is  reduced.  It  is  particularly  helpful 
to  take  the  same  piece  of  work  and  reduce  it  to  its  lowest 
terms  by  a  series  of  abstracts,  each  of  which  suggests  treat- 
ment on  a  different  scale.  For  instance,  take  a  passage  of 
400  words  and  reduce  it,  trying  to  keep  the  most  important 
ideas  and  eliminating  the  least  important,  to  200;  then  to  100; 
then  to  50;  and  finally  to  a  single  sentence.  Take  a  story 
and  gradually  cut  out  the  less  important  events  until  it  is  re- 
duced to  a  single  sentence. 

In  making  an  abstract,  first  read  each  paragraph  carefully 
to  see  whether  its  substance  is  summed  up  in  a  topic  sentence; 
if  so,  you  will  be  saved  the  trouble  of  making  one. 

ASSIGNMENT 

1.  Make  an  abstract  in  400  words,  then  in  200, 100,  and  50  words, 
of  some  historical  or  biographical  article,  or  chapter  of  a  biography. 
The  following  biographies  from  the  Dictionary  of  National  Biography, 
or  from  some  good  encyclopaedia  would  be  suitable: 

Thomas  Chatterton,  Samuel  Pepys,  Sir  Francis  Drake,  Sir  Walter 
Raleigh,  John  Bunyan,  Horace  Walpole,  Prince  Rupert,  Sir  Joshua 
Reynolds,  David  Garrick,  Lady  Mary  Wortley  Montagu,  William 
Morris,  Christina  Rossetti. 

2.  From  the  article  or  chapter  that  you  have  chosen  for  1  select 
a  portion  of  the  life  or  of  the  period  of  history  which  you  think 
would  be  interesting  for  a  paper  of  500  words.    Make  notes  from 
your  source  of  information  of  the  main  episodes  that  should  be 
developed,  and  discuss  the  scale  of  treatment  and  features  that 
should  be  emphasized. 

3.  Give  the  main  incidents  in  an  imaginary  attempt  at  theft  from 
three  points  of  view:  (1)  the  thief's;  (2)  the  victim's;  and  (3)  a  by- 
stander's. 

Note  changes  of  emphasis  required  by  the  hypothesis  that  the  thief 


NARRATION  151 

is  (1)  starving,  (2)  a  kleptomaniac;  that  the  victim  is  (1)  a  nervous 
old  lady,  (2)  a  football  star;  that  the  bystander  is  (1)  a  policeman; 
(2)  a  child. 

4.  Compare  two  chapters  in  two  histories  dealing  with  the  same 
subject  but  for  entirely  different  classes  of  readers,  to  see  how  the 
emphasis  varies.  Green's  Short  History  of  the  English  People  and 
a  one-volume  History  of  England  make  a  good  contrast.  Note 
on  cards  the  different  allotment  of  space  to  different  subjects.  If  a 
chapter  is  too  long,  take  a  portion  of  a  chapter  that  deals  with  a 
single  phase  of  some  subject. 


3.  NARRATIVE  DEVICES 

On  any  scale  of  treatment  many  details  which  are  unim- 
portant for  the  purpose  in  hand  must  be  omitted.  There  are 
various  ways  in  which  this  elimination  can  be  successfully 
managed,  among  them  these : 

1.  Getting  rid  of  the  machinery  of  an  event. 

2.  Summing   up   hi   a    transition   paragraph   uneventful 
periods. 

3.  Passing  from  one  dramatic  moment  to  another,  leaving 
the  reader  to  infer  what  has  happened  in  the  interval. 

One  of  the  commonest  causes  of  ineffectiveness  in  narration 
is  failure  to  distinguish  between  details  that  have  narrative 
value  in  themselves,  and  details  that  are  mere  machinery, 
and  as  such  should  be  taken  for  granted.  In  the  following 
sentence  the  machinery  is  inclosed  between  parentheses : 

This  morning  I  (dressed  and  walked  downtown  after  I  had  had 
breakfast  and)  bought  an  imported  hat  for  ten  dollars. 

Unless  there  is  some  reason  for  emphasizing  the  parenthet- 
ical matter — for  example,  if  the  speaker  were  an  invalid — 
the  narrative  gains  point  by  omitting  it  as  something  to  be 
understood.  Yet  how  many  people  have  learned  to  omit 
details  of  this  kind  in  conversation? 

Most  fiction  is  overloaded  with  machinery,  which  is  used 
as  mere  decoration  or  filling.  In  an  artistic  story  there  is 


152  THE  WRITING  OF  ENGLISH 

not  a  look  or  a  gesture  that  has  not  a  definite  value  for  plot, 
character,  or  atmosphere. 

In  narrative  of  fact,  on  the  other  hand,  the  value  of  ma- 
chinery for  dramatic  presentation  is  too  little  understood. 

It  is  a  safe  rule  when  you  are  writing  fiction,  to  see  how 
much  invented  machinery  you  can  omit;  and  when  you  are 
writing  fact,  to  see  how  much  machinery  necessarily  involved 
in  the  main  events  you  can  put  in. 

One  useful  device  is  the  transition  paragraph  beginning: 
So  months  passed  .  .  .  ;  Some  time  elapsed  without  much 
change  in  the  situation;  Several  days  later  .  .  .  This  as- 
sumes either  that  the  intervening  events  are  of  the  type  just 
narrated  in  full,  or  that  there  are  no  events  of  importance. 
By  summarizing  in  this  way  the  colorless  parts  of  your 
narrative  you  save  space  so  that  you  can  develop  more  fully 
other  parts  on  which  you  wish  to  focus  the  reader's  attention. 
Note  also  that  these  transition  passages  have  a  double  value: 
they  give  background  against  which  the  dramatic  scenes 
stand  out  the  more  distinctly,  and  they  afford  a  momentary 
relief  to  the  reader's  attention. 

More  effective  and  more  modern  is  the  method  of  passing 
from  one  dramatic  point  to  the  next  without  indication  of  the 
intervening  episodes,  which  must,  naturally,  be  of  a  sort 
that  can  be  safely  inferred  by  the  reader.  Mr.  Arnold  Ben- 
nett, for  instance,  in  a  short  story  called  The  Lions  Share, 
represents  his  hero,  Horace,  as  the  lifelong  victim  of  his 
younger  brother,  Gerald,  whom  as  a  child  he  had  the  mis- 
fortune to  injure.  Gerald  not  merely  lives  upon  his  brother, 
but  cuts  him  out  in  his  one  love  affair.  We  have  a  long  ac- 
count of  a  tea  party  in  which  it  seems  that  Horace  is  about 
to  win  the  girl,  a  long  account  of  the  sudden  arrival  of  Gerald, 
and  of  his  effect  upon  the  girl.  Then,  instead  of  giving  de- 
tails of  the  way  in  which  Gerald  cuts  out  Horace,  Bennett 
says: 

The  wedding  cost  Horace  a  large  sum  of  money".  .  .  . 


NARRATION  153 

Whenever  this  sharp  transition  from  one  important  point 
in  the  narrative  to  another  can  be  made  with  perfect  clear- 
ness, it  saves  space,  and  secures  emphasis. 

The  best  way  to  learn  to  use  these  devices  is  to  observe 
continually  how  they  are  used  in  the  work  of  skilled  writers 
to  secure  striking  effects  with  the  greatest  economy  of  words. 

ASSIGNMENT 

1.  Try  to  observe  in  your  own  use  of  narration  as  you  talk,  and 
in  the  narratives  of  people  to  whom  you  listen,  the  coordination 
of  important  details  with  the  machinery  associated  with  them. 
Note  and  bring  to  class  any  striking  instances  of  this  that  you 
observe  in  yourself  or  in  others,  and  show  how  the  narrative  might 
be  improved  by  omission. 

2.  Copy  and  bring  to  class  for  discussion  ten  transition  para- 
graphs or  sentences  from  history,  biography,  or  fiction.     Try  to 
get  as  many  types  as  possible.    While  you  are  doing  this,  note  on 
separate  cards   instances  in  which  the  reader  is  left  to  make  the 
transition. 

3.  In  the  fiction  of  a  good  magazine  note  ten  or  more  instances 
in  which  the  events  of  a  period  of  time  are  left  to  be  imagined  by 
the  reader.    Distinguish  between  the  cases  in  which  the  events  are 
of  the  same  sort  as  those  previously  described  in  the  story,  and 
those  in  which  they  are  simply  unimportant. 

4.  PLOT 

In  narrative  of  fact  we  are  bound  to  keep  things  in  their 
actual  relations  in  time  and  space:  we  may  not  change  the 
date  of  the  Battle  of  the  Marne,  or  call  General  Cadorna  a 
Frenchman.  In  fiction  we  may  choose  time  and  place  at  will, 
but  we  must  have  plot.  The  root-idea  of  the  word  fiction  is 
made-up,  imagined',  and  the  root-idea  of  the  word  plot  is 
pattern.  Fiction,  then,  is  narrative  put  together  according 
to  some  pattern. 

The  facts  of  human  experience  we  relate  in  terms  of  space 
and  time,  and  as  far  as  we  can,  of  cause  and  effect;  and  so  we 


154  THE  WRITING  OF  ENGLISH 

make  history  and  biography.  In  fiction  we  use  the  same 
human  experience;  but  instead  of  representing  it  as  it  is,  we 
tear  it  to  pieces  and  rebuild  it  to  conform  to  and  exhibit  a 
special  pattern,  commonly  called  a  plot. 

The  essence  of  plot  is  instability.  In  life  we  find  infinitely 
variable  series  of  periods  of  quiescence  and  of  activity  or 
change;  but  plot  is  concerned  only  with  the  element  of  change. 
In  life  a  group  of  persons  may  go  on  in  a  routine  that  scarcely  ( 
varies  for  years  at  a  time;  then  suddenly  there  is  upheaval, 
and  the  stability  of  their  lives  is  overthrown.  For  a  time, 
long  or  short,  routine  disappears,  every  phase  of  experience 
is  freshly  considered;  almost  every  day  brings  change;  then 
readjustment  takes  place,  and  a  new  routine  follows.  But 
during  these  periods  of  change  there  lies — perhaps  in  every 
life — the  possibility  of  a  story,  that  is,  biography  plus 
plot. 

The  first  thing,  then,  that  plot  does  is  to  throw  experience 
out  of  focus :  it  expands  episodes  and  sums  up  years  in  a  sen- 
tence or  a  phrase.  It  has  its  origin  in  the  element  of  change 
in  life,  and  it  moves  from  the  breaking  up  of  one  unstable 
situation  to  another  which  is  relatively  stable.  In  the  plot 
of  tragedy  this  is  the  unredeemable  defeat  of  the  ambition 
or  aspiration — perhaps  the  death — of  the  person  in  whose 
fortune  we  are  for  the  time  interested;  in  the  plot  of  comedy, 
his  success  in  the  line  of  action  which  was  involved  in  the 
opening  situation.  In  the  entire  movement  of  plot  there  is, 
except  for  contrast  and  relief,  no  moment  of  rest;  each  un- 
stable situation  breaks  up  into  other  situations,  which 
immediately  break  up  into  others.  The  whole  story  sweeps 
forward  in  ceaseless  progression — at  different  paces,  it  is 
true,  and  with  emphasis  on  different  features,  but  without 
rest  until  the  full  stop  in  the  last  situation.  If,  as  sometimes 
happens,  this  presently  breaks  up  into  a  fresh  series,  we  have 
a  sequel  to  the  original  story. 

Remember  to  distinguish  sharply  between  plot  and  the 


NARRATION  155 

story  of  which  it  forms  part  of  the  machinery.  Novels  are 
often  written  as  imitation  biographies  or  autobiographies, 
in  which  perhaps  a  third  of  the  book  or  more  is  given  to 
memories  of  childhood  almost  lacking  in  plot  interest.  All 
novels  have  plot  in  varying  degrees  as  well  as  in  different 
patterns;  but  the  fundamental  quality  of  plot  itself  is  un- 
ceasing change. 

But  instability — change — always  involves  a  conflict  of 
forces — a  tug  in  two  directions.  This  may  be  external — 
the  clash  of  human  wills,  or  the  fight  of  a  human  being  with 
his  environment,  social  or  physical;  or  it  may  be  internal — 
the  conflict  of  desires  and  motives  within  a  personality.  In 
the  highest  types  of  literature  it  is  usually  both.  In  stories 
of  adventure,  and  in  such  novels  as  most  of  Scott's  and 
Dickens's,  the  conflict  is  largely  external;  in  psychological 
studies,  and  in  such  novels  as  Henry  James's,  it  is  largely  in- 
ternal. In  the  novels  of  Thackeray,  Meredith,  and  the  chief 
contemporary  novelists,  both  kinds  of  struggle  are  found  in 
varying  degrees. 

In  this  conflict  the  reader  is  partisan;  he  always  identifies 
himself  more  or  less  completely  with  the  figure  Or  figures 
about  whom  the  story  centers,  and  accordingly  is  in  a  state 
of  suspense  until  he  knows  the  outcome  of  the  series  of 
changes.  The  more  strongly  this  suspense  is  felt,  the  greater 
is  the  pull  or  tension  of  the  plot.  The  story  with  the  most 
successful  plot  is  that  which  the  reader  "cannot  put  down" 
until  he  knows  "how  it  comes  out." 

Now  this  suspense  is  the  result  of  certain  definite  devices. 
One  of  these  is  increasing  the  tension  as  the  story  develops. 
This  increase  is  necessary  because  any  feeling  wears  off  unless 
it  is  intensified  or  jogged.  After  a  time  the  reader  will  grow 
comfortably  callous  to  the  hero's  sorrows  or  escapes,  thinking; 
"He  will  come  out  all  right  as  he  always  does."  What  then? 
The  writer  must  increase  the  trouble  or  the  danger  until  his 
invention  is  exhausted — when,  of  course,  it  is  time  to  end 


156  THE  WRITING  OF  ENGLISH 

the  book.  But  the  plot,  if  it  is  to  hold  the  attention  per- 
fectly, must  involve  the  reader  in  a  succession  of  thrills  each 
of  which  is  in  some  way  more  exciting  than  the  one  before  it. 

These  thrills  are  due  to  something  more  than  the  steady 
increase  of  tension;  they  come  only  when  the  attention  is 
jogged.  This  jogging  is  accomplished  by  breaking  the  sus- 
pense here  and  there  barely  long  enough  for  the  reader  to 
give  a  gasp  of  relief,  and  then  bringing  back  the  complica- 
tions worse  than  they  were  before.  By  force  of  contrast  the 
reader  then  feels  them  more  keenly  than  before;  and  he  reads 
with  a  succession  of  thrills. 

Each  point  where  the  plot  thickens  is  called  a  climax. 
And  the  chief  climax  is  always,  in  a  well-constructed  plot, 
that  point  at  which  the  complication  of  the  action  is  com- 
pleted and  the  force  or  forces  are  introduced  which  finally 
result  in  the  "untying  of  the  knot."  There  may  be  but  one 
principal  climax  in  a  plot;  but  usually  we  find  a  succession 
of  lesser  climaxes  leading  up  to  the  chief  one. 

The  suspense  in  plot  may  be  of  two  sorts.  In  tragic  plot 
the  reader  from  the  first  sees  the  inevitable  outcome,  and 
watches  it  just  as  in  life  he  might  watch  fascinated  a  man's 
struggles  to  escape  from  the  whirlpool  of  Niagara.  His  ques- 
tion is  never:  What  will  be  the  end  of  this?  but  always:  How 
long  can  defeat  be  postponed,  and  how  will  it  come  about  in 
the  end? 

In  comedy  plot,  the  end  is  not  seen  to  be  inevitable;  on 
the  contrary,  it  looks  impossible.  The  reader's  question 
becomes:  How  can  this  turn  out  as  I  wish?  And  his  interest 
may  be  screwed  up — tightened — in  two  ways:  (1)  by  befog- 
ging him,  and  (2)  by  misleading  him. 

Befogging  him  means  so  complicating  the  episodes  that  no 
way  out  appears;  and  misleading  him  means  making  every 
episode  seem  to  lead  directly  away  from  the  desired  end.  In 
Dickens 's  novels  we  are  usually  befogged  as  to  the  outcome, 
often  by  the  interposition  between  hero  and  heroine  of 


NARRATION  157 

subplot  and  counterplot,  involving  many  minor  characters. 
In  Jane  Austen's  Persuasion  we  are  most  delicately  led  to 
believe  that  Captain  Wentworth  is  in  love  with  Louisa,  even 
as  Anne  Elliott,  the  heroine,  is  led  to  believe  it. 

These  are  the  basic  ideas  on  which  an  infinity  of  plot 
patterns  have  been  built  up  in  the  novel  and  the  drama. 
The  short  story,  which  as  a  type  has  practically  been  created 
within  the  last  half  century,  has  a  technique  of  its  own, 
which  needs  separate  study.  Variety  of  plot  depends — aside 
from  the  distinction  between  tragedy  and  comedy — upon 
the  nature  of  the  episodes  chosen  for  development;  but  into 
this  phase  of  the  subject  we  have  here  no  space  to  enter. 

Each  writer  chooses  and  combines  such  material  as  his 
experience  of  life  brings  him,  but  always  along  the  lines  here 
suggested.  He  may  have  a  double  thread,  as  in  Vanity  Fair, 
where  we  follow  out  the  tragedy  of  Becky  Sharp  and  the 
comedy  of  Amelia  Sedley.  He  may  have  a  multiple  plot,  as 
Dickens  usually  had,  in  which  comedy  and  tragedy  elements 
are  tangled.  He  may  write  almost  straight  biography,  as 
Thackeray  does  in  Henry  Esmond,  and  even  continue  this 
through  several  generations,  as  Arnold  Bennett  does  in  The 
Old  Wives'  Tale.  Or  he  may  write  a  narrative  of  several 
social  groups  which  reads  almost  like  history  with  only  a 
subtle  and  elusive  plot  pattern,  as  Tolstoi  did  in  War  and 
Peace.  But  wherever  plot  appears  at  all,  it  does  actually 
conform  to  the  same  general  principles. 

ASSIGNMENT 

1.  Analyze  the  plot  technique  of  such  of  the  following  novels 
as  you  have  read:  Tess  of  the  D'Urbervilles;  Under  the  Greenwood 
Tree;  Bleak  House;  Little  Dorrit;  David  Copperfield;  Vanity  Fair; 
The  Newcomes;  Pride  and  Prejudice;  Jane  Eyre;  The  Mill  on  the 
Floss;  Silas  Marner;  Middlemarch;  Diana  of  the  Crossways;  The 
Egoist;  Lord  Jim;  Lorna  Doone;  The  Heart  of  Mid-Lothian;  Ken- 
ilworth;  Kidnapped;  Treasure  Island. 

In  doing  this,  use  the  following  suggestions: 


158  THE  WRITING  OF  ENGLISH 

(1).  Is  the  type  biographical,  autobiographical,  historical, 
social,  or  simply  episodic? 

(2).  Is  the  plot  single,  double,  or  multiple?  If  you  find 
more  than  one  plot  classify  each  as  tragedy  or  comedy. 

(3).  State  the  central  figure  or  figures;  the  nature  of  the  con- 
flict; the  opening  and  closing  situations,  showing  that  the  first 
is  unstable  and  the  last  stable;  and  the  climax  or  climaxes. 

(4).  Show  how  the  reader  is  befogged  or  misled — or  both. 

(5).  Show  how  years  are  telescoped  and  episodes  are  expanded. 

(6) .  Distinguish  between  plot  and  non-plot  elements. 
2.  Write  a  careful  analysis  in  300  words  of  one  of  these  books, 
discussing  all  the  points  enumerated  above. 


CHAPTER  X 
DESCRIPTION 

1.  SENSE  APPEAL 

THE  simplest  use  of  description  is  for  identification.  It 
involves  merely  an  exact  catalogue,  more  or  less  complete, 
of  the  qualities  which  chiefly  distinguish  an  individual  from 
the  other  members  of  the  species  to  which  it  belongs.  This 
kind  of  description  is  continually  used  in  the  sciences;  and  it 
is  found  in  practical  life  in  the  LOST  columns  of  newspapers, 
Police  Bulletins,  catalogues,  and  classified  advertisements. 
With  this  form  of  description  we  have  here  nothing  to  do. 

Description,  in  the  wider  sense,  has  a  totally  different  aim. 
It  aims  to  stimulate  the  reader's  imagination,  to  cause  the 
reader  to  awaken  in  himself  certain  images  that  appeal  to 
the  senses.  This  is  not  to  cause  the  reader  to  see  exactly 
what  the  writer  has  seen.  No  two  people  ever  see  the  same 
thing,  even  at  the  same  time,  in  exactly  the  same  way :  every 
one  differs  from  every  one  else  in  his  senses  and  in  his 
standards.  Titian-red  hair  means  one  thing  to  me,  another  to 
you;  and  it  meant  something  still  different  to  Titian  himself. 
Description  does  not  aim  to  transfer  impressions,  because 
this  transfer  is  manifestly  impossible.  It  does  not  identify 
for  you  something  that  I  have  seen;  it  simply  tries  to  make 
you  construct  from  your  own  experience  a  mental  image  that 
fits  my  description.  This  is  done  by  means  of  words  that 
convey  impressions  and  suggestions  of  sight,  sound,  smell, 
taste,  touch.  The  writer  begins  with  a  complex  experience 
and  tries  to  compress  it  into  such  words;  the  reader  begins 
with  the  words  and  tries — unconsciously,  of  course — to 
159 


160  THE  WRITING  OF  ENGLISH 

expand  them,  to  make  them  live  and  grow,  in  terms  of  his 
own  experience.  It  follows  that  the  more  experiences  writer 
and  reader  have  in  common,  the  more  perfect  will  be  the 
correspondence  between  the  image  intended  and  the  image 
evoked.  Between  two  people  of  similar  temperaments  who 
have  had  exactly  the  same  experience,  a  single  word  will  often 
transfer  an  imaged  memory  of  a  scene  with  all  its  sights  and 
sounds  and  smells. 

"  Fuenterrabia " — what  image  does  the  word  convey  to 
you?  To  me  it  brings  a  vision  first  of  all  of  yellowness:  of  a 
wide  sheen  of  beach,  of  tiers  of  sun-burned  house-fronts; 
of  many  balconies  trailing  nasturtiums;  of  a  golden-domed 
cathedral — all  burning  in  intolerable  sunlight.  And  with 
this  comes  a  clear  memory  of  a  street  like  a  sheer  narrow 
ravine  climbing  the  hillside;  of  cobbles  that  hurt  the  feet;  of 
the  echo  of  my  own  footsteps;  and  finally  of  a  smell  of  damp 
cellar,  hot  grease,  olives,  and  sour  wine,  that  haunted  the 
shaded  way.  These  are  some  of  the  images  evoked  for  me 
by  the  utterance  of  a  single  word. 

But  how  shall  I  describe  the  place  for  you  who  have  not 
seen  it?  I  must  use  words  that  appeal  to  your  experience, 
whoever  you  are  and  wherever  you  have  lived.  You  know 
yellow;  you  have  seen  sand  on  the  shore  or  in  the  desert — 
somewhere;  you  know  how  sun-burned  things  look,  you 
know  nasturtiums,  golden  domes,  ravines,  cobbles,  and  the 
smell  of  damp  cellars,  olives,  hot  grease,  and  sour  wine. 
Probably  you  have  not  experienced  all  these  things  in  com- 
bination, but  with  the  aid  of  imagination  you  blend  them  and 
make  a  picture  which  is  not  my  picture  nor  the  picture  of 
anyone  else  who  has  seen  the  place.  Yet  for  you  it  is  real  be- 
cause you  have  created  it.  Now  the  test  of  success  in  descrip- 
tion is  the  extent  to  which  it  stimulates  the  reader's  imag- 
ination to  this  creative  process.  How  is  this  stimulation 
accomplished? 

The  first  step  is  to  translate  the  unknown  into  terms  that 


DESCRIPTION  161 

are  familiar.  It  does  not  do,  for  example,  to  say,  "He  was 
uniformed  like  a  mandarin  duck,"  unless  you  have  reason 
to  suppose  that  your  reader  has  seen  mandarin  ducks.  But 
the  art  of  description  involves  much  more  than  this.  It  in- 
volves first  of  all  a  continual  shifting  of  attention  from  the 
abstract  to  the  concrete,  from  the  general  to  the  specific: 
"There  is  movement  (abstract)  in  that  bush.  What  is  it? 
It  is  an  animal  (concrete).  It  is  a  brindled  yellow  cat,  hop- 
ping on  three  legs,  and  carrying  a  baby  rabbit  in  his  mouth" 
(specific) .  By  close  observation  movement  is  translated  into 
animal,  and  animal  is  resolved  into  its  most  striking  qual- 
ities, with  the  result  that  the  reader  is  able  to  construct  a 
sharply-defined  picture  out  of  his  previous  experiences  of 
cats  and  rabbits. 

The  fundamental  condition,  then,  of  good  description  is 
that  he  who  attempts  it  must  first  wake  up  all  his  senses; 
he  must  see,  hear,  smell,  taste,  and  touch — as  far  as  he  can — 
everything  that  comes  into  his  experience. 

The  second  and  closely  associated  condition  is  that  he 
must  immediately  begin  to  compare  these  sense  impressions, 
so  that  he  can  say:  "This  is  like  that";  and  also:  "This  is 
found  with  that,  but  no  two  things  could  be  more  different." 
In  this  way  he  will  acquire  not  merely  a  host  of  vivid  sense 
impressions,  but  such  flexibility  in  shifting  his  attention 
from  one  to  another  that  he  can  immediately  group  about 
one  that  is  unfamiliar  to  his  reader  a  host  of  others  that 
are  familiar,  and  choose  the  one  word  or  the  group  of  words 
that  will  stimulate  the  imagination  to  form  a  definite  picture. 

"  She  wore  a  green  dress  " — do  you  get  a  picture?  Was  the 
color  olive-green,  emerald-green,  sea-green,  apple-green, 
gray-green,  moss-green,  bottle-green,  blue-green,  bronze- 
green  or  the  hideous  green  of  desk  blotting  paper?  The 
writer  must  say  which  if  he  wishes  the  reader  to  construct 
a  picture. 

To  describe  well,  then,  it  is  necessary  first  to  cultivate 


162  THE  WRITING  OF  ENGLISH 

the  sharp  senses  of  a  naturalist,  then  to  classify  your  impres- 
sions so  that  one  can  be  made  to  explain  another.  In  this 
process  of  classification  is  involved  the  exact  fitting  of  the 
specific  and  concrete  word  to  the  impression.  Observe  how 
these  three  conditions  are  met  by  a  naturalist  in  the  following 
descriptions  of  color,  sound,  taste  and  smell: 

There  were  jelly-fish  of  opalescent  silver,  scalloped  with  sepia, 
alive  with  medusa  locks — a  tangle  of  writhing,  stinging  strands.  .  .  . 
Iridescent,  feathery-footed  sea-worms,  pale  green  sea-snakes,  blue 
translucent  shrimps — all  came  to  our  net.  .  .  . — William  Beebe. 

Do  you  know  sepia,  medusa  locks?  The  writer  assumes  that 
you  do.  Do  you  know  the  difference  between  opalescent, 
iridescent,  and  translucent?  The  writer  is  writing  for  people 
who  do. 

In  the  following  are  sound  and  motion — combined,  because 
in  the  reality  they  were  inseparable.  The  description  is  of 
bats  in  a  cave: 

From  the  inky  darkness  of  some  hidden  fissure  they  dropped 
almost  to  my  face;  then,  with  a  whip  of  their  leathery  wings,  they 
turned  and  vanished  in  the  dark  cavern  ahead.  The  noise  their 
wings  made  was  incredibly  loud;  sometimes  a  purring,  as  fifty  small 
ones  whirred  past  together;  then  a  sharp  singing,  and  finally  a 
sharp  whistling  twang  as  a  single  giant  bat  twisted  and  flickered 
on  his  frightened  way. — William  Beebe. 

Do  not  all  these  familiar  sounds  and  movements  enable  you 
to  imagine  the  unfamiliar  experience? 

Here  is  the  description  of  a  Malaysian  fruit: 

With  rotten  eggs  as  a  basis,  if  one  adds  sour  milk  and  lusty  Lim- 
burger  cheese  ad  lib.,  an  extremely  unpleasant  mixture  may  be 
produced.  It  quite  fails,  however,  as  an  adequate  simile  to  durian. 

—William  Beebe. 

Here  you  are  asked  not  merely  to  build  up  an  impression  but 
to  increase  the  scale  as  you  build — to  exaggerate  the  blended 
impression.  Does  not  this  change  of  scale  stimulate  the 
imagination? 


DESCRIPTION  163 

Before  you  attempt  to  write  description,  you  should  prac- 
tise testing  and  classifying  your  sense  impressions;  and  should 
give  yourself  some  training  in  these  respects.  You  will  be 
surprised  to  find  how  quickly  your  senses  respond  to  the 
suggestion.  You  might  begin  by  trying  to  remember  the 
color,  shape,  sound,  taste,  smell,  etc.,  of  certain  familiar 
things;  continue  by  examining  them  to  correct  your  impres- 
sions; and  conclude  by  trying  to  associate  them  with  as  many 
others  as  you  can  find  in  each  case  to  suggest  them  to  other 
people.  The  reading  of  work  that  shows  the  closest  sort  of 
observation  is  a  help,  in  that  it  shows  the  possibilities  of 
development  of  the  powers  of  the  senses.  For  this  purpose 
especially  valuable  writings  are:  Henri  Fabre's  Life  of  the 
Spider;  John  Burroughs's  nature  studies;  W.  H.  Hudson's 
Nature  in  Downland;  William  Beebe's  articles  in  The  Atlantic 
Monthly,  now  published  under  the  title  Jungle  Peace 

ASSIGNMENT 

1.  Write  in  class  a  phrase  giving  your  impression  of  each  of  the 
following  tastes.     Either  suggest  what  it  is  like  and  explain  the 
difference,  or  make  a  blend  of  several  tastes.    Use  the  allied  senses 
of  touch  and  smell  whenever  you  need  to  do  so:  sweet  potato,  paw- 
paw, celery,  radish,  parsnip,  plum  pudding,  lemon  jelly,  grape  fruit, 
maple  syrup,  whipped  cream,  milk  chocolate. 

2.  Distinguish  in  a  sentence  between  the  tastes  of  the  following 
kinds  of  apples:  Spitzenbergs,  russets,  Jonathans,  or  any  other 
three  kinds. 

3.  Kipling  describes  the  smell  of  a  country  cottage  thus: 
"...  the  smell  of  the  box-tree  by  the  dairy  window  mixed  with 

the  smell  of  earth  after  rain,  bread  after  baking,  and  a  tickle  of  wood- 
smoke."  Use  his  method  in  describing  in  a  sentence  each  the 
smell  of  (1)  an  attic;  (2)  a  cellar;  (3)  a  kitchen,  (4)  a  room  long 
closed;  (5)  a  ship;  (6)  some  other  place  of  blended  odors. 

4.  Describe  in  a  phrase  each  of  the  following  sounds:  sawing, 
drawing  a  foot  out  of  thick  mud,  skating,  walking  in  wet  snow, 
frying,  boiling. 

5.  Distinguish  in  30  words  or  less  between  the  following  sounds 
in  each  group;  the  horns  of  three  automobiles;  a  violin,  a  mandolin, 


164  THE  WRITING  OF  ENGLISH 

and  a  guitar;  an  oboe  and  a  French  horn;  the  noises  made  by  a  cat 
and  a  dog  to  express  different  emotions;  an  express  train  and  a  fast 
freight. 

6.  Describe  in  a  phrase  the  feeling  of  each  of  the  following  to 
the  touch:  sandpaper;  tweed;  a  wet  sponge;  a  dry  sponge;  chewing 
gum. 

7.  Distinguish  in  a  sentence  each  the  difference  in  the  appeal 
to  touch  of  the  following:  velvet  and  plush;  all  wool  and  mixed 
wool  and  cotton  goods;  two  kinds  of  fur;  jelly  and  curds. 

8.  Describe  in  less  than  50  words  each:  (1)  the  sights  and  sounds 
from  your  window  observed  in  ten  minutes;  (2)  sounds  heard  in 
the  house  after  you  have  gone  to  bed. 

9.  Describe  from  memory  in  a  sentence  or  two  the  song  of  any 
bird  or  the  sound  made  by  any  animal. 

10.  Describe  briefly  from  memory  any  peculiarly  vivid  impression 
of  smell,  taste,  or  touch  made  upon  you  in  childhood. 

11.  Does  the  following  suggest  to  you  any  similar  memory?    If 
so,  tell  it  as  exactly  and  naturally  as  you  can  (200-300  words). 
The  child  was  a  little  girl: 

"Down  among  the  long  wet  grass  there  was  a  trickle  of  a  stream 
which  only  ran  after  heavy  rain,  as  it  was  an  overflow  from  the 
drive  gutter.  It  poured  out  in  a  little  dribble  of  water  from  a 
drain-pipe  into  a  pool,  and  then  wandered  off  through  winding 
banks  till  it  fell  gently  into  a  bigger  pool — too  big  ever  to  be  filled, 
and  the  water  only  made  it  muddy  in  patches  and  then  lost  itself 
in  the  grass,  Intsummer  the  pool  was  caked  dry,  and  had  cracks 
in  it,  as  if  there  had  been  an  earthquake.  There  my  brother  Bert 
and  I  used  to  play,  damming  the  stream  with  mud,  and  then  making 
a  gap  and  letting  the  stopped-up  water  rush  through  with  fury. 
When  I  put  my  face  on  the  grass  the  stream  looked  as  if  it  were 
the  size  of  a  big  river,  with  cliff-like  banks  and  a  rough  green  forest 
hanging  over  the  edges." — Joan  Arden. 

12.  Make  a  short  study  (about  100  words)  of  the  gathering  of 
flowers,  fruits,  or  nuts,  as  remembered  from  childhood,  in  the  manner 
of  this  little  sketch.     Try  to  select  the  few  essential  features  that 
give  a  strong  general  impression  and  feeling  of  the  scene: 

"Sometimes  on  summer  mornings  in  the  holidays,  when  the  sun 
had  yet  only  touched  the  tree-tops,  I  went  in  the  fields  to  look  for 
mushrooms.  Then  suddenly  pushing  through  the  wet  grass  I 
would  see  the  white  roundness  of  one,  and  others  near  it.  They 
looked  astonishingly  holy,  and  were  warm  with  life  and  wet  with 
drops  of  dew  on  them,  and  when  I  touched  my  face  with  them  they 


DESCRIPTION  165 

were  tender,  and  the  smell  of  their  growing  was  strong.  But  when 
the  sun  shone  hot  on  the  grass  and  dried  it  I  found  no  more  and 
went  home." — Joan  Arden. 

13.  Make  another  short  study  of  any  similar  use  of  imagination 
in  childhood  suggested  to  you  by  this  sketch: 

"There  was  also  a  little  beech  tree,  which  had  a  bough  near  the 
ground  spreading  out  like  a  fan.  I  tied  string  on  to  four  of  the 
outermost  twigs,  then  I  stood  on  the  main  branch  and  gathered 
up  the  reins  of  my  horses  and  drove  them  with  fury,  as  I  have  seen 
ancient  Britons  in  a  circus  drive  their  teams  of  horses  from  a  chariot. 
I  bent  them  to  the  ground  with  my  feet,  and  let  them  spring  so 
that  the  old  brown  leaves  of  last  summer,  which  still  clung  to  the 
twigs,  made  a  rustling  noise." — Joan  Arden. 

14.  What  are  your  first  memories  of  a  train?     Read  the  following 
picture  and  make  a  short  sketch  (200  words)  based  on  your  own 
experience  and  impressions: 

"From  the  bedroom  windows  of  our  house  we  could  see  the  gray 
station  down  in  the  valley,  and  the  trains  creeping  in  and  out.  We 
could  sit  on  the  window-sill  and  draw  them,  and  even  at  that  dis- 
tance feel  how  exciting  and  friendly  they  were,  so  that  it  would 
have  hurt  us  not  to  hear  the  happy  noises  of  puffing,  or  the  com- 
plaining repetition  of  the  shock  down  a  line  of  trucks  when  an 
engine  bumped  into  the  first  one.  It  was  still  more  exciting  to  be 
on  the  single  platform — the  station  was  the  terminus  of  a  branch 
line — on  summer  evenings  when  the  London  train  was  expected, 
and  the  milkcarts  came  rattling  up  to  fetch  away  the  empty  cans. 
Then  we  heard  the  hollow  click  of  the  signal  going  down,  and  the 
few  people  on  the  platform  became  suddenly  alert.  We  strained 
our  eyes  to  see  the  first  white  puff  of  smoke,  and  suddenly  the  engine 
came  in  with  a  rush,  sizzling  and  dripping  with  heat  like  a  great 
animal." — Joan  Arden. 

15.  Have  you  had  any  experience  similar  to  this?     If  so,  tell 
about  it  as  simply  and  as  unemotionally  as  is  done  in  this  paragraph. 
The  beauty  of  the  work  lies  in  the  detached  manner  of  reproducing 
almost  without  comment  an  experience  which  to  the  child  was  full 
of  emotional  suggestion: 

"Now  and  then  when  I  was  still  quite  young,  I  was  allowed  to 
go  to  church  on  dark  Sunday  evenings.  I  remember  very  clearly 
that  once  my  mother  and  I  waited  at  the  end  of  the  service  while 
the  organ  was  played.  The  sounds  seemed  to  rise  into  the  heights 
of  the  tower  square.  The  people  were  streaming  out,  and  the  night 
wind  through  the  open  doors  made  the  yellow  gas-jets  flare.  Then 


166  THE  WRITING  OF  ENGLISH 

a  dark-bearded  sexton  went  round,  turning  out  all  but  a  few  of 
the  lights,  till  the  church  was  dim.  The  chancel,  which  had  been 
blazing  with  light,  was  now  lit  only  by  the  distant  half-turned- 
down  gas.  Still  the  music  went  on,  and  I  heard  the  chink  of  money 
being  counted  in  the  vestry.  Then  my  father,  who  was  the  clergy- 
man, strode  slowly  across  the  square  under  the  tower  towards  us, 
his  head  thrown  back  as  if  he  were  looking  at  the  sounds  of  the 
music,  which  I  thought  chased  one  another  about  near  the  roof. 
He  sat  at  the  end  of  our  pew,  his  face  quiet  with  thinking,  till  it 
was  all  over.  Then  our  feet  made  a  clattering  noise  on  the  pave- 
ment of  the  great  empty  church,  and  we  went  home  up  the  field- 
path  in  the  dark  windy  night." — Joan  Arden. 


2.  CHOICE  OF  DETAILS 

Suppose  you  describe  a  girl  thus:  "She  is  very  small  and 
dainty,  always  dressed  in  pale,  delicate  shades  of  color, 
preferably  pale  pinks  and  blues.  She  has  a  pink  and  white 
complexion,  blue  eyes,  yellow  hair,  and  doll-like  features."  Is 
not  all  this  suggested  by  "She  looked  like  a  Dresden  china 
shepherdess"?  And  does  not  this  give  a  more  vivid,  because 
more  concentrated,  image  of  the  girl? 

If  you  suggest  to  your  reader  a  single  familiar  image,  his 
memory  will  reconstruct  it  for  him.  If  you  bid  him  with  the 
aid  of  imagination  construct  a  new  image,  he  will  have  to 
blend  it  out  of  several  memories.  If  you  give  him  many 
details  to  work  upon,  the  danger  is  that  you  will  clog  the 
wheels  of  his  mental  machinery,  and  disable  him  from  pro- 
ducing any  clear  impression  at  all.  As  in  drawing  the  best 
results  sometimes  come  from  the  fewest  lines,  so  in  descrip- 
tion, with  comparatively  simple  subjects,  a  few  striking  de- 
tails make  a  deeper  and  clearer  impression  than  a  larger 
number,  even  though  these  may  all  be  good  in  themselves. 
The  next  problem  in  description,  then,  becomes  choice  of 
details. 

No  subject  is  so  simple  that  it  does  not  offer  far  more 
material  than  could  be  used  in  any  description.  What  prin- 
ciple governs  choice?  Before  deciding  this,  let  us  observe 


DESCRIPTION  167 

the  comfortable  fact  that  there  are  certain  natural  elimina- 
tions of  details. 

The  description  of  Fuenterrabia  was  an  impression  of 
some  one  who  was  in  the  streets  of  the  town  on  a  glaring 
summer  day.  Here  is  a  sketch  of  the  same  place  viewed  from 
across  the  river  three  miles  away  on  a  chilly  evening: 

A  low,  grey  hump  of  a  town,  crested  with  a  square  black  fort 
and  a  dim  cupola,  perhaps  of  some  church,  huddled  between  sharp- 
peaked  purple  mountains  half  hidden  in  swirling  mists  and  the 
grey  estuary  that  merged  into  a  sea  of  steel. 

The  two  descriptions  have  only  one  detail  in  common — the 
cupola,  which  is  clearly  a  dominant  feature  of  the  scene. 
What  has  completely  eliminated  one  set  of  details  and  sub- 
stituted another?  There  are  at  least  three  transforming 
factors:  (1)  the  point  of  view;  (2)  the  time  of  day;  (3)  the 
weather.  The  first  made  it  impossible  to  say  anything  about 
balconies,  flowers,  cobbles,  or  smells  and  changed  the  scale 
of  the  picture;  the  second  and  third  entirely  changed  the 
colors.  So,  in  general,  if  you  are  describing  a  view  from  a 
hill,  you  cannot  go  into  detail  about  a  town  in  the  plain; 
if  a  scene  in  the  town,  you  must  remember  how  details  look 
from  the  exact  place  where  you  are  supposed  to  be,  at  the 
time  and  under  the  light  conditions  that  prevail. 

But  there  are  other  determinants  of  what  shall  and  what 
shall  not  be  included  in  a  description.  No  two  people  see 
exactly  the  same  details  in  a  scene  or  in  a  person,  not  merely 
because  their  eyes  are  different,  but  also  because  they  are 
by  training  and  experience  accustomed  to  look  for  certain 
features  and  to  neglect  others.  As  a  painter  is  more  aware 
of  color  and  a  sculptor  of  form,  so  a  farmer  sees  in  a  land- 
scape what  is  and  might  be  grown  there;  a  real  estate  agent 
views  the  same  place  as  a  possible  site  for  a  town;  and  a  tired 
tramp  stealing  a  ride  shuts  his  eyes  and  does  not  look  at 
the  country  at  all.  So  it  is  with  houses,  dresses,  faces,  all 
aspects  of  life  that  come  before  our  eyes:  things  that  are 


168  THE  WRITING  OF  ENGLISH 

beautiful  to  one  are  ugly  to  another,  and  no  two  people  see 
the  same  combinations  of  details.  Nor  is  this  the  whole  of 
the  matter.  As  appearances  change  according  to  the  light 
in  which  they  are  viewed,  so  they  change  according  to  the 
mood  of  the  observer.  An  empty  house  that  seems  pictur- 
esque in  a  happy  mood,  may  seem  dreary  when  the  observer 
himself  is  melancholy.  Both  the  general  character  of  the 
observer  and  his  special  mood  at  the  time  of  observation, 
then,  affect  the  choice  of  details,  bringing  about  further 
elimination  among  all  that  might  be  seen  from  a  particular 
point  of  view  and  under  particular  conditions  of  time  and 
season. 

All  these  necessary  eliminations  greatly  simplify  the  prob- 
lem of  choice.  If  you  are  writing  a  description  in  your  own 
person,  and  you  do  not  shift  your  point  of  view  or  attempt 
to  combine  into  one  impressions  derived  from  different  occa- 
sions, you  have  only  to  be  true  to  your  own  eyes  and  your 
own  temperament  and  mood  in  order  to  make  a  true  pic- 
ture. It  may  contain  too  many  details  to  help  the  reader  to 
build  his  own  imaginative  picture;  but  it  will  at  least  be  true. 

ASSIGNMENT 

1.  Analyze  the  following  descriptions  to  determine  as  far  as 
possible  in  each  case:  (1)  the  point  of  view;  (2)  the  time  of  day, 
season  of  the  year,  and  weather;  (3)  the  character  and  occupation 
of  the  observer;  (4)  his  mood  at  the  time  of  observation: 

"  The  loudest  sound  in  the  wood  was  the  humming  in  the  trees; 
there  was  no  wind,  no  sunshine;  a  summer  day,  still  and  shadowy, 
under  large  clouds  high  up.  To  this  low  humming  the  sense  of 
hearing  soon  became  accustomed,  and  it  served  but  to  render  the 
silence  deeper.  In  time,  as  I  sat,  waiting  and  listening,  there  came 
the  faintest  far-off  song  of  a  bird  away  in  the  trees;  the  merest  thin 
upstroke  of  sound,  slight  in  structure,  the  echo  of  the  strong  spring 
singing.  This  was  the  summer  repetition,  dying  away.  A  willow- 
wren  still  remembered  his  love,  and  whispered  about  it  to  the  silent 
fir  tops,  as  in  after  days  we  turn  over  the  pages  of  letters,  withered 
as  leaves,  and  sigh.  So  gentle,  so  low,  so  tender  a  song  the  willow- 


DESCRIPTION  169 

wren  sang  that  it  could  scarce  be  known  as  the  voice  of  a  bird,  but 
was  like  that  of  some  yet  more  delicate  creature  with  the  heart  of  a 
woman" — Richard  Jefferies. 

"  Next  morning  the  August  sun  shone,  and  the  wood  was  all 
a-hum  with  insects.  The  wasps  were  working  at  the  pine  boughs 
high  overhead;  the  bees  by  dozens  were  crowding  to  the  bramble 
flowers;  swarming  on  them.  .  .  .;  humble-bees  went  wandering 
among  the  ferns  in  the  copse  and  in  the  ditches  and  calling  at 
every  purple  heath-blossom,  at  the  purple  knap-weeds,  purple 
thistles,  and  broad  handfuls  of  yellow-weed  flowers.  Wasp-like 
flies  barred  with  yellow  suspended  themselves  in  the  air  between 
the  pine-trunks  like  hawks  hovering,  and  suddenly  shot  them- 
selves a  yard  forward  or  to  one  side,  as  if  the  rapid  vibration  of 
their  wings  while  hovering  had  accumulated  force  which  drove 
them  as  if  discharged  from  a  cross-bow.  The  sun  had  set  all  things 
in  motion." — Richard  Jeff eries. 

"  Three  fruit-pickers — women — were  the  first  people  I  met  near 
the  village  [in  Kent].  They  were  clad  in  'rags  and  jags,'  and  the 
face  of  the  eldest  was  in  'jags'  also.  It  was  torn  and  scarred  by 
time  and  weather;  wrinkled,  and  in  a  manner  twisted  like  the  fan- 
tastic turns  of  a  gnarled  tree-trunk,  hollow  and  decayed.  Through 
these  jags  and  tearings  of  weather,  wind,  and  work,  the  nakedness 
of  the  countenance — the  barren  framework — was  visible;  the  cheek- 
bones like  knuckles,  the  chin  of  brown  stoneware,  the  upper-lip 
smooth,  and  without  the  short  groove  which  should  appear  between 
lip  and  nostrils." — Richard  Jefferies. 

"  A  single  vast  gray  cloud  covered  all  the  country,  from  which 
the  small  rain  and  mist  had  just  begun  to  blow  down  in  wavy 
sheets,  alternately  thick  and  thin.  The  trees  of  the  fields  and 
plantations  writhed  like  miserable  men  as  the  air  wound  its  way 
swiftly  among  them:  the  lowest  portions  of  their  trunks,  that  had 
hardly  ever  been  known  to  move,  were  visibly  rocked  by  the  fiercer 
gusts,  distressing  the  mind  by  its  painful  unwontedness,  as  when 
a  strong  man  is  seen  to  shed  tears.  Low-hanging  boughs  went 
up  and  down;  high  and  erect  boughs  went  to  and  fro;  the  blasts 
being  so  irregular,  and  divided  into  so  many  cross-currents,  that 
neighboring  branches  of  the  same  tree  swept  the  sky  in  independent 
motions,  crossed  each  other,  or  became  entangled.  Across  the 
open  spaces  flew  flocks  of  green  and  yellowish  leaves,  which,  after 
traveling  a  long  distance  from  their  parent  trees,  reached  the 
ground,  and  lay  there  with  their  under-sides  upward." — Thomas 
Hardy. 


170  THE  WRITING  OF  ENGLISH 

3.  POINT  OF  VIEW 

The  chief  danger  of  the  inexperienced  writer  when  he  at- 
tempts a  description  involving  more  than  a  few  details  is 
that  he  tries  to  photograph  what  he  sees.  He  says  to  him- 
self in  effect:  "This  place  is  so  different  from  others  of  its 
kind  that  if  I  only  put  in  enough  of  its  striking  features,  the 
reader  must  see  it  as  I  do."  This  theory  ignores  the  fun- 
damental truth  which  we  have  been  emphasizing,  that  no 
one  can  make  anyone  else  see  what  he  sees.  But  because  the 
belief  that  he  can  is  so  deep-rooted,  it  is  worth  while  to  show 
in  detail  how  it  leads  astray  even  a  writer  of  genius.  As  you 
read  the  following  description  of  a  house,  make  four  sets  of 
notes: 

1.  The  details  that  could  have  been  observed  by  a  passing 
stranger  from  the  opposite  side  of  the  street. 

2.  Additional  details  that  could  have  been  observed  from 
the  lawn. 

3.  Further  details  that  could  have  been  observed  by  pass- 
ing through  the  gate  in  the  lattice. 

4.  Details  that  could  have  been  known  only  to  someone 
who  either  lived  in  the  house  or  visited  it  frequently. 

1.  It  was  a  large  frame  house  of  two  stories;  all  the  windows  in 
the  front  were  bay.  2.  The  front  door  was  directly  in  the  middle 
between  the  windows  of  the  parlor  and  those  of  the  library,  while 
over  the  vestibule  was  a  sort  of  balcony  that  no  one  ever  thought 
of  using.  3.  The  house  was  set  in  a  large  well-kept  yard.  4.  The 
lawn  was  pretty;  an  enormous  eucalyptus  tree  grew  at  one  corner. 
5.  Nearer  to  the  house  were  magnolia  and  banana  trees  growing 
side  by  side  with  pines  and  firs.  6.  Humming-birds  built  in  these, 
and  one  could  hear  their  curious  little  warbling  mingling  with  the 
hoarse  chirp  of  the  English  sparrows  which  nested  under  the  eaves. 
7.  The  back  yard  was  separated  from  the  lawn  by  a  high  fence  of 
green  lattice-work.  8.  The  hens  and  chickens  were  kept  here  and 
two  roosters,  one  of  which  crowed  every  time  a  cable-car  passed 
the  house.  9.  On  the  door  cut  through  the  lattice-fence  was  a 
sign,  "Look  Out  for  the  Dog."  10.  Close  to  the  unused  barn  stood 


DESCRIPTION  171 

an  immense  windmill  with  enormous  arms;  when  the  wind  blew  in 
the  afternoon  the  sails  whirled  about  at  a  surprising  speed,  pump- 
ing water  from  the  artesian  well  beneath.  11.  There  was  a  small 
conservatory  where  the  orchids  were  kept.  12.  Altogether,  it  was  a 
charming  place.  13.  However,  adjoining  it  was  a  huge  vacant  lot 
with  cows  in  it.  14.  It  was  full  of  dry  weeds  and  heaps  of  ashes,  while 
around  it  was  an  enormous  fence  painted  with  signs  of  cigars, 
patent  bitters,  and  soap. — Frank  Norris. 

Looking  at  your  four  lists,  can  you  say  from  which  point 
of  view  the  author  means  the  description  to  be  written? 
Does  he  stand  still  while  he  is  drawing  his  picture,  or  does 
he  continually  shift  his  position  without  warning?  What 
can  you  tell  about  the  weather,  season,  and  time  of  day? 
What  general  impression  does  he  try  to  give  of  the  place  as 
a  whole?  What  details  immediately  contradict  this  impres- 
sion? 

The  root  of  the  trouble  is  that  what  we  have  here  is  not 
a  picture  at  all,  but  an  identification.  It  is  altogether  prob- 
able that  not  another  house  in  the  city  would  have  shown 
exactly  this  combination  of  details;  but  the  reader's  per- 
petual effort  to  shift  his  point  of  view  and  to  combine  these 
unexpected  things  simply  blurs  the  picture. 

Contrast  the  following  by  noting,  as  you  read  it,  answers 
to  these  questions:  What  has  Guy  to  do  with  the  house? 
Is  he  familiar  with  it?  What  indications  of  his  mood  are 
given?  From  what  point  of  view  does  he  examine  the  house? 
Is  it  natural  for  him  to  count  the  windows  and  imagine  his 
friends  behind  them?  Does  he  change  his  point  of  view? 
Is  the  change  unmistakably  shown?  Do  you  get  an  effect 
of  strong  or  of  subdued  light?  Was  the  sun  shining  brightly? 
Is  any  detail  given  that  could  not  have  been  seen  and  would 
not  have  been  noticed  by  that  particular  person  at  that 
particular  time? 

Guy  sat  upon  the  parapet  of  the  well  under  the  shade  of  a  syca- 
more-tree and  regarded  with  admiration  and  satisfaction  the  ex- 
terior of  bis  house.  He  looked  at  the  semicircular  porch  of  stone 


172  THE  WRITING  OF  ENGLISH 

over  the  front  door  and  venerated  the  supporting  cherubs  who 
with  puffed-out  cheeks  had  blown  defiance  at  wind  and  rain  since 
the  days  of  Elizabeth.  He  counted  the  nine  windows,  five  above 
and  four  below,  populating  with  the  shapes  of  many  friends  the 
rooms  they  lightened.  He  looked  at  the  steep  roof  of  gray-stone 
tiles  rich  with  the  warm  golden  green  of  mossy  patterns.  He  looked 
at  the  four  pear  trees  against  the  walls  of  the  house,  barren  now  for 
many  years.  He  looked  at  himself  in  silhouette  against  the  silver 
sky  of  the  well-water;  and  then  he  went  in-doors. 

The  big  stone-paved  hall  was  very  cool,  and  the  sound  of  the 
stream  at  the  back  came  babbling  through  lattices  open  to  the 
light  of  a  green  world.  Guy  could  not  make  up  his  mind  whether 
the  inside  of  the  house  smelled  very  dry  or  very  damp,  for  there 
clung  about  it  that  odor  peculiar  to  rustic  age,  which  may  be  found 
equally  in  dry  old  barns  and  in  damp  potting-sheds.  He  wished 
he  could  furnish  the  hall  worthily.  At  present  it  contained  only  a 
high-back  chair,  an  alleged  contemporary  of  Cromwell,  which  was 
doddering  beside  the  hooded  fireplace;  a  warming  pan;  and  an  oak 
chest  which  remained  a  chest  only  so  long  as  nobody  either  sat 
upon  it  or  lifted  the  lid.  There  was  also  a  grandfather-clock 
which  had  suffered  an  abrupt  resurrection  of  four  minutes'  duration 
when  it  was  recently  lifted  out  of  the  furniture  van,  but  had  now 
relapsed  into  the  silence  of  years. — Compton  Mackenzie. 

Now  compare  the  number  of  details  given  with  the  num- 
ber in  the  preceding  description.  You  will  find  that  although 
the  second  is  about  fifty  words  longer,  and  includes  an  inte- 
rior as  well  as  an  exterior  view,  it  contains  by  actual  count 
only  about  half  as  many  details.  The  reader  for  the  moment 
is  Guy,  sitting  on  the  well-parapet,  and  he  supplies  from  his 
imagination  details  about  the  porch  and  cherubs,  etc.;  and 
with  Guy  he  goes  indoors  and  supplies  the  hall  furniture  out 
of  his  own  experience  of  antiques. 

In  the  following  paragraph,  note  how  simply  and  how 
definitely  each  change  in  the  point  of  view  is  indicated  as  the 
men  in  the  boat  row  all  day  long  until  they  reach  the  land. 
Very  few  details  are  given;  and  as  the  boat  lands  in  the  dark, 
the  appeal  to  the  sense  of  smell  replaces  appeal  to  sight: 

And  this  is  how  I  see  the  East.  I  have  seen  its  secret  places  and 
have  looked  into  its  very  soul;  but  now  I  see  it  always  from  a  small 


DESCRIPTION  173 

boat,  a  high  outline  of  mountains,  blue  and  afar  in  the  morning; 
like  faint  mist  at  noon;  a  jagged  wall  of  purple  at  sunset.  I  have 
the  feel  of  the  oar  in  my  hand,  the  vision  of  the  scorching  blue  sea 
in  my  eyes.  And  I  see  a  bay,  a  wide  bay,  smooth  as  glass  and 
polished  like  ice,  shimmering  in  the  dark.  A  red  light  burns  far 
off  upon  the  gloom  of  the  land,  and  the  night  is  soft  and  warm.  We 
drag  at  the  oars  with  aching  arms,  and  suddenly  a  puff  of  wind,  a 
puff  faint  and  tepid  and  laden  with  strange  odors  of  blossoms,  of 
aromatic  wood,  comes  out  of  the  still  night — the  first  sigh  of  the 
East  on  my  face.  That  I  can  never  forget.  It  was  impalpable  and 
enslaving,  like  a  charm,  like  a  whispered  promise  of  mysterious 
delight. — Joseph  Conrad. 

Is  the  narrator  a  man  of  artistic  sensibility  or  matter-of- 
fact? 

ASSIGNMENT 

1.  Tell  all  that  you  can  about  the  sex,  personality,  and  mood  of 
each  observer,  and  also  about  the  conditions  under  which  each 
observation  was  made  in  the  following: 

"  Gussie  Bloom  went  by  the  house  last  night.  She  was  wearing  a 
new  brown  suit  with  a  pleated  skirt,  and  a  hat  with  red  roses." 

"That  wasn't  a  new  suit.  I  met  her  on  the  road  this  morning. 
It  was  her  last  winter's  suit  with  some  new  braid  on  the  coat.  And 
those  roses  her  sister  Sally  wore  on  a  black  hat  all  last  winter." 

"A  girl  with  a  peach-blossom  face  and  Titian  hair,  a  very  Hebe 
dressed  in  long  lines  of  stuff,  brown  madder  in  hue,  intensified  to 
crimson  in  the  roses  of  her  hat." 

"Gussie  looked  mighty  sweet  when  she  came  into  the  store  to- 
day to  buy  a  pair  of  gloves.  Five  and  three-quarters  she  wears. 
Prettiest  little  hand  in  the  world.  I  almost  forgot  to  let  it  go!" 

"The  girl  was  not  bad-looking,  but  dressed  in  a  half-cotton 
sweatshop  suit  and  a  home-trimmed  hat  hopelessly  out  of  date." 

2.  Write  two  paragraphs  describing  the  street  you  know  best 
as  it  looks  (1)  from  a  window  on  a  morning  in  early  spring;  (2)  from 
the  sidewalk  at  a  given  point  on  a  winter  night. 

3.  Describe  in  less  than  fifty  words  some  town  that  you  know 
well  as  seen  from  a  distance;  and  in  another  fifty  words  or  less 
give  a  "close  up"  of  its  principal  street.     Make  it  evident  in  your 
descriptions    what    the   season,  time,  and   weather   were    at    the 
time  of  observation. 

4.  Take  the  last  exercises  and  change  all  the  conditions  of  ob- 


174  THE  WRITING  OF  ENGLISH 

servation,  noting  what  details  you  must  omit,  and  what  fresh  de- 
tails you  must  add. 

5.  Write  a  description  in  fifty  words  or  less  of  the  sounds  that 
you  have  noted  in  a  corner  of  a  wood  or  garden,  or  of  the  campus. 
Use  few  details,  but  make  each  one  count.    See  that  they  all  belong 
to  the  conditions  of  your  point  of  view. 

6.  Write  in  less  than  a  hundred  words  a  description  of  some 
storm  that  made  a  special  impression  upon  you.    Describe  the  differ- 
ent movements  of  the  trees  if  it  was  a  wind  storm;  the  different 
ways  in  which  the  rain  or  snow  affected  objects  on  the  ground,  etc. 

7.  Write  in  a  sentence  each  the  following  descriptions: 

(1)  A  baby,  described  by  its  mother;  by  a  brother  nine  years  old; 
by  the  man  in  the  flat  below. 

(2)  An  automobile  as  seen  by  its  owner;  by  the  owner  of  a  more 
expensive  car;  by  a  man  who  cannot  afford  a  car. 

(3)  A  man  as  seen  by  his  employer;  by  his  mother;  by  his  wife; 
by  his  neighbor;  by  his  three-year  old  daughter. 

(4)  A  woman  as  seen  by  her  servant;  by  a  neighbor;  by  a  shop- 
girl; by  her  dressmaker;  by  her  doctor. 


4.  GENERAL  IMPRESSION 

For  the  experienced  writer  all  these  eliminations  of  mate- 
rial dependent  upon  point  of  view  and  mood  have  become 
instinctive.  In  facing  a  subject  for  description  he  imme- 
diately begins  an  active  search  for  a  unifying  principle  that 
will  hold  together  the  details  which  are  most  character- 
istic of  the  subject — which  set  it  apart  from  all  other  things 
of  its  kind.  Such  a  principle  at  once  involves  further  sim- 
plification— the  elimination  of  more  material  as  irrelevant. 
Often  such  a  principle  suggests  itself  as  a  general  impression 
which  comes  to  us  at  the  first  glance.  We  say:  "A  blue 
room" — "a  golden  wood" — "a  shabby  man" — "an  untidy 
girl."  Then  we  observe  that  most  of  the  furniture  in  the 
room  is  blue;  that  hickory,  maple,  and  beach  trees  make  the 
wood  golden;  that  a  shiny  coat,  frayed  cuffs,  and  patched 
boots  make  the  man  shabby;  that  straggling  hair,  a  soiled 
waist,  and  a  crooked  skirt  make  the  girl  look  untidy.  But 


DESCRIPTION  175 

we  may  also  notice  a  green  chair  in  the  blue  room,  a  red 
maple  in  the  golden  wood;  the  man  may  be  wearing  a  clean 
collar,  and  the  girl  new  gloves.  These  details  are  inconsistent 
with  our  first  general  impression.  If  we  lump  together  in 
our  description  blue  things  and  things  not  blue,  golden 
leaves  and  leaves  not  golden,  shabby  dress  and  smart  dress, 
untidiness  and  neatness,  the  reader  will  not  know  in  what 
proportions  to  construct  his  image;  he  will  get  only  a  blur. 
We  can  help  him  by  using  a  general  impression  in  one  of 
two  ways.  If  the  details  that  do  not  harmonize  with  it  are 
unimportant,  we  may  neglect  them  altogether.  If  they  are 
discordant,  and  prominent,  then  what  we  have  is  not  a  single 
but  a  double  impression,  and  we  represent  this  by  contrasting 
as  sharply  as  we  can  its  opposing  elements:  we  deliberately 
emphasize  the  touch  of  crimson  in  the  blue  room  or  the  yellow 
wood;  the  contrasting  features  in  the  general  shabbiness  of 
the  man  and  untidiness  of  the  girl.  The  very  contrast  em- 
phasizes the  contrary  general  impression,  because  the  single 
feature  seems  out  of  place. 

So  far  the  problem  is  easy.  But  you  will  perhaps  say  that 
there  are  people  and  places  that  do  not  at  once  suggest  a 
general  impression.  There  is,  however,  nothing  so  complex 
or  so  colorless  that  it  will  not  yield  to  observation  and  con- 
sideration an  impression  to  which  its  major  details  con- 
tribute, even  if  this  impression  be  only  of  complexity  or  of 
colorlessness.  It  is  the  writer's  business  to  subject  everything 
that  presents  itself  to  a  scrutiny  that  ends — be  the  process 
instantaneous  or  slow — in  the  reduction  of  its  details  either 
to  a  single  unifying  principle,  or  to  a  dominant  principle 
with  which  a  minority  of  details  are  not  in  accord,  but 
which,  by  emphasizing  the  contrast,  becomes  a  unifying 
principle. 

This  general  impression  may  be  expressed  in  terms  of  form: 

The  peaks  are  tall  and  thin  like  close-clustered  cathedral  spires. 
The  building  is  E-shaped,  placed  so  that  the  bottom  line  faces 


176  THE  WRITING  OF  ENGLISH 

north.  In  this  wing  are  the  offices ;  the  dormitories  are  in  the  parallel 
south  wing — the  upper  line  of  the  E;  and  the  classrooms  in  the  long 
connecting  line  from  which  projects  to  the  west  the  library  ending 
in  a  port-cochere — the  short  middle  stroke  of  the  letter. 

Or  the  general  impression  may  be  of  color.  In  the  follow- 
ing, note  that  all  green  is  omitted,  although  naturally  it  was 
still  to  be  found  in  the  woods: 

All  things  brown,  and  yellow,  and  red,  are  brought  out  by  the 
autumn  sun;  the  brown  furrows  freshly  turned  where  the  stubble 
was  yesterday,  the  brown  bark  of  trees,  the  brown  fallen  leaves, 
the  brown  stalks  of  plants;  the  red  haws,  the  red  unripe  black- 
berries, red  bryony  berries,  reddish-yellow  fungi;  yellow  hawkweed, 
yellow  ragwort,  yellow  hazel-leaves,  elms,  spots  in  lime  or  beech; 
not  a  speck  of  yellow,  red,  or  brown  the  yellow  sunlight  does  not 
find  out. — Richard  Je/eries. 

In  the  following  paragraph  the  general  impression  is  of 
remoteness.  Do  you  find  a  single  detail  that  does  not  suggest 
this  idea? 

On  a  summer's  day  Wolstanbury  Hill  is  an  island  in  sunshine; 
you  may  lie  on  the  grassy  rampart,  high  up  in  the  most  delicate  air — 
Grecian  air,  pellucid — alone,  among  the  butterflies  and  humming 
bees  at  the  thyme,  alone  and  isolated;  endless  masses  of  hills  on 
three  sides,  endless  weald  or  valley  on  the  fourth;  all  warmly  lit 
with  sunshine,  deep  under  liquid  sunshine  like  the  sands  under  the 
liquid  sea,  no  harshness  of  man-made  sound  to  break  the  insulation 
amid  nature,  on  an  island  in  a  far  Pacific  of  sunshine. 

— Richard  Jefferies. 

Name  all  the  words  and  phrases  that  carry  out  the  general 
idea  underlying  the  description. 

In  the  following,  note  how  every  detail  contributes  to  the 
general  impression  of  hideous  and  expensive  gorgeousness : 

In  Swithin's  orange  and  light-blue  dining-room,  facing  the  Park, 
the  round  table  was  laid  for  twelve. 

A  cut-glass  chandelier  filled  with  lighted  candles  hung  like  a 
giant  stalactite  above  its  center,  radiating  over  large  gilt-framed 
mirrors,  slabs  of  marble  on  the  tops  of  side-tables,  and  heavy  gold 
chairs  with  crewel  worked  seats. — John  Galsworthy, 


DESCRIPTION  177 

List  the  details  which  show  wealth;  those  which  indicate 
spaciousness;  those  which  suggest  over-ornamentation;  those 
which  suggest  ugliness.  Unless  the  reader  himself  has  "an 
impatience  of  simplicity,  a  love  of  ormolu,"  he  will  easily 
summon  up  images  of  the  most  expensively  overfurnished 
house  that  he  knows  and  impose  upon  his  memory  of  it  the 
blue-and-gold,  and  cut-glass,  marble,  gold,  and  fancy  work 
of  the  description. 

In  the  following  little  portraits  of  men  who  have  made 
money,  note  how  the  details  in  each  case  are  constructed  to 
give  a  general  impression  of  (1)  luxurious  self-satisfaction; 
(2)  nervous  greed;  (3)  snobbishness.  Note  also  how  def- 
initely each  figure  is  placed  as  if  seen  by  some  person  in  the 
room: 

Over  against  the  piano  a  man  of  bulk  and  stature  was  wearing 
two  waistcoats  on  his  wide  chest,  two  waistcoats  and  a  ruby  pin, 
instead  of  the  single  satin  waistcoat  and  diamond  pin  of  more  usual 
occasions,  and  his  shaven,  square  old  face,  the  color  of  pale  leather, 
with  pale  eyes,  had  its  most  dignified  look,  above  its  satin  stock. 
This  was  Swithin  Forsyte.  Close  to  the  window,  where  he  could 
get  more  than  his  fair  share  of  fresh  air,  the  other  twin,  James — 
the  fat  and  the  lean  of  it,  old  Jolyon  called  these  brothers — like 
the  bulky  Swithin,  over  six  feet  in  height,  but  very  lean,  as  though 
destined  from  his  birth  to  strike  a  balance  and  maintain  an  average, 
brooded  over  the  scene  with  his  permanent  stoop;  his  grey  eyes 
had  an  air  of  fixed  absorption  in  some  secret  worry,  broken  at  in- 
tervals by  a  rapid,  shifting  scrutiny  of  surrounding  facts;  his  cheeks 
thinned  by  two  parallel  folds,  and  a  long,  clean-shaven  lip,  were 
framed  within  Dundreary  whiskers.  In  his. hands  he  turned  and 
turned  a  piece  of  china.  Not  far  off,  listening  to  a  lady  in  brown,  his 
only  son  Soames,  pale  and  well-shaved,  dark-haired,  rather  bald, 
had  poked  his  chin  up  sideways,  carrying  his  nose  with  that  afore- 
said appearance  of  "sniff,"  as  though  despising  an  egg  which  he 
knew  he  could  not  digest. — John  Galsworthy. 

Note  both  how  incomplete  the  list  of  details  is  in  each 
case,  and  how  the  emphasis  shifts :  Swithin's  clothes,  James's 
leanness,  and  Soames's  position.  Can  you  supply  the  missing 


178  THE  WRITING  OF  ENGLISH 

details  from  those  given?  How  would  Swithin  stand  and 
walk?  How  was  James  dressed?  Soames?  Decide  of  which 
one  each  of  the  following  phrases  was  used:  "twisting 
his  long,  thin  legs";  "with  a  chest  like  a  pouter  pigeon's, 
came  strutting  towards  them";  "looked  downwards  and 
aslant,  ...  as  though  trying  to  see  through  the  side  of  his 
own  nose." 
Tell  which  of  the  three  men  spoke  each  of  the  following: 

"Well,  he  takes  good  care  of  himself.  I  can't  afford  to  take  the 
care  of  myself  that  he  does." 

"Exercise  .  .  .  I  take  plenty:  I  never  use  the  lift  at  the  Club." 

"I'm  very  well,  in  myself,  .  .  .  but  my  nerves  get  out  of  order. 
The  least  thing  worries  me  to  death." 

"That's  genuine  old  lacquer;  you  can't  get  it  nowadays.  It'd 
do  well  in  a  sale  at  Jobson's.  ...  I  wouldn't  mind  having  it  my- 
self .  .  .  you  can  always  get  your  price  for  old  lacquer." 

— John  Galsworthy. 

As  you  read  the  book,  A  Man  of  Property,  you  will  find 
that  every  later  description,  every  speech,  and  every  action 
of  each  of  these  characters  is  simply  a  development  of  the 
qualities  implied  in  the  first  general  impression. 

Your  chief  aim,  then,  should  be  to  get  a  vital  relationship 
between  your  general  impression  and  the  details  which  you 
enumerate;  that  is,  every  detail  should  contribute  to  the 
impression,  and  there  should  be  no  details  which  do  not  so 
contribute  unless  these  are  related  by  deliberate  contrast. 
It  is  not  always  necessary  to  state  the  impression;  but  the 
reader  should  be  able  to  feel  it  in  each  detail,  and  so  to  con- 
struct it  for  himself. 

ASSIGNMENT 

1.  State  the  general  impression  underlying  the  following  sketch; 
also  the  extent  to  which  it  is  conditioned  by  the  point  of  view  and 
the  nature  of  the  writer: 

"  I  stayed  in  London  for  a  few  days  one  November  in  the  middle 
of  a  school  term.  One  evening  the  blue  dusk  had  crept  on,  and 


DESCRIPTION  179 

the  streets  were  lit  with  bluish  and  yellow  lamps.  We  were  coming 
home  from  some  show,  and  climbed  on  to  the  top  of  an  omnibus. 
Then  I  saw  the  great  stretch  of  dark  houses  like  the  rocks  in  a  sea 
and  the  wide  sky  and  the  spits  of  light,  and  heard  the  sounds  of 
many  people  and  the  clatter  of  horses  and  cart-wheels,  and  a  sud- 
den fear  came  to  me  that  it  was  impossible  for  one  God  to  know 
the  lives  of  all  these  people." — Joan  Arden. 

Write  a  similar  sketch  of  about  the  same  length  of  a  similar  sub- 
ject; but  be  true  to  your  own  impression. 

2.  Criticize  the  following  sketch  of  a  country  dry-goods  store, 
telling  where  the  general  impression  is  lost: 

"...  It  had  a  tired  atmosphere,  which  closed  round  you  as  you 
got  inside  the  swinging  glass  doors.  But  I  liked  to  wait  at  the 
counter  while  the  weary,  bald-headed  shopman  measured  out 
ribbon,  for  once  he  had  given  me  the  blank  paper  which  falls  away 
from  the  ribbon  as  it  is  unwound,  and  I  hoped  that  he  might  again, 
but  he  never  did.  It  was  fun  to  walk  about  in  the  part  of  the  shop 
where  women's  clothes  were  shown,  and,  when  no  one  was  looking, 
punch  the  senseless  people  who  stood  on  one  leg  with  no  head  and 
very  definite  figures." — Joan  Arden. 

Rewrite,  keeping  the  impression  first  suggested,  and  the  same 
details.  Your  problem  is  how  to  associate  the  idea  of  fatigue  with 
the  lay  figures. 

3.  Write  in  about  100  words  a  sketch  of  your  childish  memory 
of  one  of  these:  the  school  bookstore;  the  grocery  store;  the  drug- 
store. 

4.  State  the  general  impression  of  the  following  in  the  author's 
own  words: 

"Thus,  when  Mr.  Maybold  raised  his  eyes  ...  he  beheld  glaring 
through  the  door  Mr.  Penny  in  full-length  portraiture,  Mail's 
face  and  shoulders  above  Mr.  Penny's  head,  Spinks's  forehead  and 
eyes  over  Mail's  crown,  and  a  fractional  part  of  Bowman's  counte- 
nance under  Spinks's  arm — crescent-shaped  portions  of  other  heads 
and  faces  being  visible  behind  these — the  whole  dozen  and  odd 
eyes  bristling  with  eager  inquiry." — Thomas  Hardy. 

What  details  would  make  it  easy  for  an  artist  to  sketch  the  group? 
Write  a  similar  description  of  a  group  in  less  than  100  words. 

5.  Sum  up  in  two  words  the  general  impression  of  the  following. 
Name  all  the  details  that  bear  it  out.    What  one  word  in  the  last 
sentence  suggests  it?    Do  you  find  any  irrelevant  details?    Where 
is  the  observer,  and  what  is  he  doing?    What  is  his  mood? 


180  THE  WRITING  OF  ENGLISH 

"Van  Ness  Avenue  was  very  still.  It  was  about  half -past  seven. 
The  curtains  were  down  in  all  the  houses;  here  and  there  a  servant 
could  be  seen  washing  down  the  front  steps.  In  the  vestibules  of 
some  of  the  smaller  houses  were  loaves  of  French  bread  and  glass 
jars  of  cream,  while  near  them  lay  the  damp  twisted  roll  of  the 
morning's  paper.  There  was  everywhere  a  great  cluttering  of 
sparrows,  and  the  cable-cars,  as  yet  empty,  trundled  down  the 
cross  streets,  the  conductors  cleaning  the  windows  and  metal 
work.  From  far  down  at  one  end  of  the  avenue  came  the  bells  of 
the  Catholic  Cathedral  ringing  for  early  mass;  and  a  respectable- 
looking  second  girl  hurried  past  him  carrying  her  prayer-book. 
At  the  other  end  of  the  avenue  was  a  blue  vista  of  the  bay,  the 
great  bulk  of  Mount  Tamalpais  rearing  itself  out  of  the  water 
like  a  waking  lion." — Frank  Norris. 

Write  a  description  in  about  200  words  of  some  familiar  street 
early  in  the  morning,  or  late  at  night.  Be  definite  as  to  the  season 
and  weather,  and  keep  a  general  impression  throughout,  but  in- 
troduce, if  you  wish,  one  or  two  contrasting  details. 

6.  Analyze  each  of  the  following  studies,  and  write  a  similar 
one  of  about  the  same  length  based  upon  your  own  observations: 

"The  devoted  maiden  friends  came  now  from  their  rooms,  each 
by  magic  arrangement  in  a  differently  colored  frock,  but  all  with 
the  same  liberal  allowance  of  tulle  on  the  shoulders  and  at  the 
bosom — for  they  were,  by  some  fatality,  lean  to  a  girl.  They  were 
all  taken  up  to  Mrs.  Small.  None  stayed  with  her  more  than  a 
few  seconds,  but  clustering  together,  talked  and  twisted  their 
programmes,  looking  secretly  at  the  door  for  the  first  appearance 
of  a  man."  .... 

"Three  or  four  of  Francie's  lovers  now  appeared,  one  after  the 
other;  she  had  made  each  promise  to  come  early.  They  were  all 
clean-shaven  and  sprightly,  with  that  peculiar  kind  of  young-man 
sprightliness  which  had  recently  invaded  Kensington;  they  did  not 
seem  to  mind  each  other's  presence  in  the  least,  and  wore  their 
ties  bunching  out  at  the  ends,  white  waistcoats,  and  socks  with 
clocks.  All  had  handkerchiefs  concealed  in  their  cuffs.  They 
moved  buoyantly,  each  armored  in  professional  gaiety,  as  though 
he  had  come  to  do  great  deeds.  Their  faces  when  they  danced,  far 
from  wearing  the  traditional  solemn  look  of  the  dancing  English- 
man, were  irresponsible,  charming,  suave;  they  bounded,  twirling 
their  partners  at  great  pace,  without  pedantic  attention  to  the 
rhythm  of  the  music."  .... 

"Men  were  scarce,  and  wallflowers  wore  their  peculiar,  pathetic 
expression,  a  patient,  sourish  smile  which  seemed  to  say:  'Oh,  no, 
don't  mistake  me,  I  know  you  are  not  coming  up  to  me.  I  can 
hardly  expect  that.'  And  Francie  would  plead  with  one  of  her 


DESCRIPTION  181 

lovers,  or  with  some  callow  youth:  'Now,  to  please  me,  do  let  me 
introduce  you  to  Miss  Pink;  such  a  nice  girl,  really,'  and  she  would 
bring  him  up,  and  say:  'Miss  Pink — Mr.  Gathercole.  Can  you 
spare  him  a  dance?'  Then  Miss  Pink,  smiling  her  forced  smile, 
coloring  a  little,  answered:  'Oh,  I  think  so'  and  screening  her 
empty  card,  wrote  on  it  the  name  of  Gathercole,  spelling  it  passion- 
ately in  the  district  that  he  proposed,  about  the  second  extra. 
But  when  the  youth  had  murmured  that  it  was  hot,  and  passed, 
she  relapsed  into  her  attitude  of  hopeless  expectation,  into  her 
patient,  sourish  smile." — John  Galsworthy. 

7.  Sum  up  a  costume  in  a  single  sentence  after  the  manner  of  the 
following,  but  with  an  entirely  different  general  impression: 

"She  was  sombrely  magnificent  this  evening  in  black  bom- 
bazine, with  a  mauve  front  cut  in  a  shy  triangle,  and  crowned  with 
a  black  velvet  ribbon  round  the  base  of  her  thin  throat;  black  and 
mauve  for  evening  wear  was  esteemed  very  chaste  by  nearly  every 
Forsyte." — John  Galsworthy. 

8.  Write  in  about  100  words  each  a  group  of  sketches  of  some 
room  that  you  know  under  the  following  conditions: 

(1)  Shabby,  as  seen  on  a  summer  morning  by  a  rich  woman  of 
artistic  tastes. 

(2)  Cosy,  as  seen  by  a  tired  man  on  a  dark  winter  evening. 

(3)  Picturesque,  as  seen  by  an  artist.     Choose  your  own  time 
of  day. 

(4)  Out-of-date,  as  seen  by  a  furniture  dealer. 

(5)  Dirty,  as  seen  by  a  New  England  housekeeper;  homelike, 
as  seen  by  the  owner. 

(6)  Gorgeous,  as  seen  by  a  poor  child. 

Try  to  make  your  details  as  mutually  exclusive  as  possible;  and 
to  get  distinctive  features. 

9.  Bring  to  class  from  some  magazine  or  book  that  you  are  read- 
ing three  descriptions  which  you  consider  good,  and  three  which 
are  bad.     Try  to  represent  scenes,  people,  and  interiors  in  your 
choice.    Test  them  by  the  laws  of  description. 

10.  Decide  whether  the  dominant  impression  of  the  following  is 
of  dullness  or  of  peace.    Use  the  same  details,  and  write  a  descrip- 
tion of  a  forlorn  garden;  of  a  peaceful  garden: 

"In  the  next  house  some  one  was  playing  La  Donna  e  mobile 
on  an  untuned  piano;  and  the  little  garden  had  fallen  into  shade, 
the  sun  now  only  reached  the  wall  at  the  end,  whereon  basked  a 
crouching  cat,  her  yellow  eyes  turned  sleepily  down  on  the  dog 
Balthazar.  There  was  a  drowsy  hum  of  very  distant  traffic;  the 


182  THE  WRITING  OF  ENGLISH 

creepered  trellis  round  the  garden  shut  out  everything  but  sky, 
and  house,  and  pear-tree,  with  its  top  branches  still  gilded  by  the 
sun." — John  Galsworthy. 

11.  State  the  general  impression  of  the  following;  then  show — 
orally — how  it  might  be  changed  to  leave  an  impression  of  imprison- 
ment from  the  open  air: 

"Here  Nature  is  unapproachable  with  her  green,  airy  canopy, 
a  sun-impregnated  cloud — cloud  above  cloud;  and  though  the 
highest  may  be  unreached  by  the  eye,  the  beams  yet  filter  through, 
illuming  the  wide  spaces  beneath — chamber  succeeded  by  cham- 
ber, each  with  its  own  special  lights  and  shadows.  Far  above  me, 
but  not  nearly  so  far  as  it  seemed,  the  tender  gloom  of  one  such 
chamber  or  space  is  traversed  now  by  a  golden  shaft  of  light  falling 
through  some  break  in  the  upper  foliage,  giving  a  strange  glory  to 
everything  it  touches — projecting  leaves,  and  beard-like  tuft  of 
moss,  and  snaky  bush-rope.  And  in  the  most  open  part  of  that 
most  open  space,  suspended  on  nothing  to  the  eye,  the  shaft  reveals 
a  tangle  of  shining  silver  threads — the  web  of  some  large  tree- 
spider." — W.  H.  Hudson. 

5.  PLAN 

When  a  single  impression  or  a  small  group  of  impressions 
is  not  sufficient  to  suggest  a  scene  as  a  whole,  it  is  necessary, 
besides  keeping  in  mind  very  definitely  the  point  of  view 
with  all  its  conditions,  both  physical  and  mental,  to  arrange 
the  material  used  according  to  some  plan.  Thus  in  the 
description  of  Guy's  house  on  p.  171  the  details  were  men- 
tioned in  the  order  in  which  Guy  noticed  them.  The  three 
men  described  on  p.  177  were  grouped  as  they  might  have 
been  in  a  portrait  group.  In  general,  where  you  have  more 
than  a  very  few  details,  it  is  well  to  proceed  as  the  artist 
does  in  setting  off  a  picture  to  be  painted;  he  holds  up  a  small 
black  frame  which  shuts  out  the  surrounding  objects  and 
isolates  a  small  group  within  it.  This  he  moves  about  until 
he  gets  what  he  needs  for  his  picture  in  the  right  composi- 
tion— the  grouping  of  its  different  parts  with  reference  to 
one  another;  and  then  proceeds  to  block  in  his  details  in  some 
definite  order  with  reference  to  one  another  on  the  canvas. 


DESCRIPTION  183 

In  the  following,  note  how  clearly  the  point  of  view,  th& 
season,  the  weather,  are  given;  and  how  clearly  the  picture 
is  suggested  from  each  side  of  the  tower  in  turn;  also  how 
clearly  it  moves  from  the  most  striking  objects  in  the  fore- 
ground to  the  most  remote  that  are  visible.  In  this  way  the 
reader's  imagination  sweeps  the  imaginary  landscape  in  the 
order  in  which  the  people  in  the  story  looked  at  the  real 
scene.  Note  also  that  all  the  details  are  seen  in  proportion 
as  from  a  height: 

The  stairs  grew  more  narrow  and  musty  as  they  went  higher; 
but  all  the  way  at  intervals  there  were  deep  slits  in  the  walls,  fram- 
ing thin  pictures  of  the  outspread  country  below  the  tower.  Still 
up  they  went  past  the  bell-ropes,  past  the  great  bells  themselves 
that  hung  like  a  cluster  of  mighty  fruit,  until  finally  they  came  out 
through  a  small  turret  to  meet  the  March  sky.  The  spire,  that 
rose  as  high  again  as  they  had  already  come,  occupied  nearly  all 
the  space  and  left  only  a  yard  of  leaded  roof  on  which  to  walk;  but 
even  so,  up  here  where  the  breeze  blew  strongly,  they  seemed  to 
stand  in  the  very  course  of  the  clouds  with  the  world  at  their  feet. 
Northward  they  looked  across  the  brown  mill-stream;  across  Guy's 
green  orchard;  across  the  flashing  tributary  beyond  the  meadows, 
to  where  the  Shipcot  road  climbed  the  side  of  the  wold.  Westward 
they  looked  to  Flasher's  Mead  and  Miss  Peasey  flapping  a  table- 
cloth; to  Guy's  mazy  garden  and  the  gray  wall  under  the  limes; 
and  farther  to  the  tree- tops  of  Wychford  Abbey;  to  the  twining 
waters  of  the  valley  and  the  rounded  hills.  Southward  they  looked 
to  Wychford  town  in  tier  on  tier  of  shining  roofs;  and  above  the 
translucent  smoke  to  where  the  telegraph-poles  of  the  long  highway 
went  rocketing  into  Gloucestershire.  And  lastly  eastward  they 
looked  through  a  flight  of  snowy  pigeons  to  the  Rectory  asleep  in 
gardens  that  already  were  painted  with  the  simple  flowers  of  spring. 

— Compton  Mackenzie. 

Although  in  general  it  is  well  to  keep  your  descriptions  so 
short  and  so  closely  related  to  narrative  that  plan  is  not  a 
serious  consideration,  this  point  is  worth  remembering:  The 
plan  which  begins  with  the  subject  itself  and  attempts  to 
lay  it  out  in  the  order  in  which  the  details  actually  occur 


184  THE  WRITING  OF  ENGLISH 

in  the  scene  itself  is  more  likely  to  be  mechanical  than  that 
which  follows  some  order  of  observation. 

Order  imposed  by  the  subject  is  useful  chiefly  in  clarifying 
an  intricate  subject  such  as  you  are  not  likely  to  have  to  deal 
with  for  some  time,  as,  for  instance,  the  plan  of  a  battlefield. 
Almost  any  scene  is  best  handled  in  one  of  two  orders  of  ob- 
servation: 

1.  Beginning  with  what  is  nearest  and  proceeding  to  what 
is  most  remote. 

2.  Beginning  with  what  strikes  the  eye  first  because  it 
is  the  dominating  feature  of  the  scene,  and  grouping  every- 
thing else  with  reference  to  it. 

The  first  method  is  exemplified  in  the  following: 

Downward  went  his  gaze,  past  the  chaos  of  limestone  boulders 
and  cliffs  fantastically  carved  into  gargoyles  and  corbels  of  ludicrous 
and  monstrous  humanity — down  and  down,  until  he  drew  in  his 
breath.  It  was  not  perhaps  so  far  in  hundreds  of  metres,  but  it 
was  desperately  sheer  and  under-eaten,  and  at  the  bottom  was  a 
great  debris  of  broken  rocks.  Still  down  and  afield  went  his  glance, 
past  the  olive-groves  descending  the  slopes  of  red  earth,  past  the 
brief  uplift  of  the  foothills,  bronzed  with  fir-woods  that  seemed  like 
low  scrub  from  that  height;  onward  he  gazed,  past  a  pale  strip  of 
meadow,  the  red  and  grey  blur  of  a  village,  past  marshes  with  shal- 
low lagoons  silvery  in  the  blaze  of  the  sun.  There,  after  the  bronze 
and  green  and  red  and  gold — there  began  the  blue;  folded  veils  of 
azure  and  violet  and  ultramarine,  passing  away,  line  upon  line, 
here  and  there  empurpled  with  heat  or  with  shadow,  with — who 
could  say  what? — until  the  sky  fell  and  the  sea  rose  to  the  meeting, 
and  the  land  embraced  both  or  was  absorbed,  and  nothing  remained 
but  blue — the  measureless  blue  of  unending  space — the  blue  where 
all  things  meet  and  are  one. — Edith  Rickert. 

The  second  method  is  exemplified  in  the  following  de- 
scription of  a  Japanese  garden: 

There  are  large  rocks  in  it,  heavily  mossed;  and  divers  fantastic 
basins  of  stone  for  holding  water;  and  stone  lamps  green  with  years; 
and  a  schachihoko,  such  as  one  sees  at  the  peaked  angles  of  castle 
roofs, — a  great  stone  fish,  an  idealized  porpoise,  with  its  nose  in 
the  ground  and  its  tail  in  the  air.  There  are  miniature  hills,  with 


DESCRIPTION  185 

old  trees  upon  them;  and  there  are  long  slopes  of  green,  shadowed 
by  flowering  shrubs,  like  river  banks;  and  there  are  green  knolls  like 
islets.  All  these  verdant  elevations  rise  from  spaces  of  pale  yellow 
sand,  smooth  as  a  surface  of  silk  and  miming  the  curves  and 
meanderings  of  a  river  course.  These  sanded  spaces  are  not  to  be 
trodden  upon;  they  are  much  too  beautiful  for  that.  The  least  speck 
of  dirt  would  mar  their  effect;  and  it  requires  the  trained  skill  of  an 
experienced  native  gardener — a  delightful  old  man  he  is — to  keep 
them  in  perfect  form.  But  they  are  traversed  in  various  directions 
by  lines  of  flat  unhewn  rock  slabs,  placed  at  slightly  irregular  dis- 
tances from  one  another,  exactly  like  stepping-stones  across  a 
brook.  The  whole  effect  is  like  that  of  the  shores  of  a  still  stream 
in  some  lovely,  lonesome,  drowsy  place. — Lafcadio  Hearn. 

ASSIGNMENT 

1.  From  the  current  numbers  of  good  magazines  select  several 
long  descriptions.    Study  these  to  find  the  plans  on  which  they  are 
constructed.    Note  on  cards  the  answers  to  such  questions  as  these : 
At  what  point  in  the  picture  does  the  description  begin?    In  what 
directions  does  it  move?    Is  the  observer's  point  of  view  changed 
in  the  course  of  the  description?    Discuss  these  notes  in  class. 

2.  Make  plans  for  the  description  of  the  following,  trying  to  get 
as  many  variant  plans  for  each  as  possible:  (1)  the  campus;  (2) 
your  home  town;  (3)  some  room  that  you  like;  (4)  the  prettiest  spot 
you  know;  (5)  the  ugliest  spot  you  know. 


6.  COMBINED  WITH  NARRATION 

Thus  far  we  have  been  studying  description  as  applied  to 
stationary  objects  and  scenes.  It  is  quite  as  important  to 
learn  how  to  describe  action  and  movement — to  suggest 
moving  pictures  to  your  readers.  In*  short  stories  this  is  the 
type  of  description  most  used. 

For  this  kind  of  description  there  is  only  one  rule:  Lean 
heavily  upon  your  verbs.  As  the  verb  is  the  only  word  that 
can  express  action  as  going  on,  you  must  crowd  into  each 
verb  as  much,  descriptive  quality  as  it  will  bear.  Make  the 
verb  do  much  of  the  work  of  the  adverb,  the  adjective,  and 
even  the  noun.  Perhaps  no  better  illustration  of  this  process 


186  THE  WRITING  OF  ENGLISH 

has  ever  been  written  than  Kipling's  Toomai  of  the  Elephants, 
which  describes  first  the  flight  of  an  elephant  through  the 
jungle  by  night,  and  then  a  nocturnal  dance  of  elephants. 
Good  as  it  is  in  every  way,  its  representation  of  different  kinds 
of  action  and  movement  is  not  soon  paralleled.  Note  the 
dynamic  quality  of  the  verbs,  and  the  extensive  use  of  verbal 
derivatives,  participles  and  gerunds: 

Sometimes  a  tuft  of  high  grass  washed  along  his  sides  as  a  wave 
washes  along  the  sides  of  a  ship,  and  sometimes  a  cluster  of  wild- 
pepper  vines  would  scrape  along  his  back,  or  a  bamboo  would  creak 
where  his  shoulder  touched  it;  but  between  those  times  he  moved 
absolutely  without  any  sound,  drifting  through  the  thick  Garo 

forest  as  though  it  had  been  smoke 

Toomai  leaned  forward  and  looked,  and 

he  felt  that  the  forest  was  awake  below  him — awake  and  alive  and 
crowded.  A  big  brown  fruit-eating  bat  brushed  past  his  ear;  a  por- 
cupine's quills  rattled  in  the  thicket,  and  in  the  darkness  between 
the  tree-stems  he  heard  a  hog-bear  digging  hard  in  the  moist  warm 
earth,  and  snuffing  as  it  digged. 

Then  the  branches  closed  over  his  head  again,  and  Kala  Nag 
began  to  go  down  into  the  valley — not  quietly  this  time,  but  as  a 
runaway  gun  goes  down  a  steep  bank — in  one  rush.  The  huge 
limbs  moved  as  steadily  as  pistons,  eight  feet  to  each  stride,  and 
the  wrinkled  skin  of  the  elbow-points  rustled.  The  undergrowth  on 
either  side  of  him  ripped  with  a  noise  like  torn  canvas,  and  the  sap- 
lings that  he  heaved  away  right  and  left  with  his  shoulders  sprang 
back  again,  and  banged  him  on  the  flank,  and  great  trails  of  creepers, 
all  matted  together,  hung  from  his  tusks  as  he  threw  his  head  from 
side  to  side  and  plowed  out  his  pathway.  .  .  . 

The  grass  began  to  get  squashy  and  Kala  Nag's  feet  sucked  and 
squelched  as  he  put  them  down,  and  the  night  mist  at  the  bottom 
of  the  valley  chilled  little  Toomai.  There  was  a  splash  and  a  trample, 
and  the  rush  of  running  water,  and  Kala  Nag  strode  through  the 
bed  of  a  river,  feeling  his  way  at  each  step.  .  .  . 

Kala  Nag  swashed  out  of  the  water,  blew  his  trunk  clear,  and 
began  another  climb;  but  this  time  he  was  not  alone,  and  he  had 
not  to  make  his  path.  That  was  made  already,  six  feet  wide,  in 
front  of  him,  where  the  bent  jungle-grass  was  trying  to  recover  itself 
and  stand  up.  Many  elephants  must  have  gone  that  way  only  a  few 
minutes  before.  Little  Toomai  looked  back,  and  behind  him  a  great 


DESCRIPTION  187 

wild  tusker  with  his  little  pig's  eyes  glowing  like  hot  coals,  was  just 
lifting  himself  out  of  the  misty  river.  Then  the  trees  closed  up  again 
and  they  went  on  and  up,  with  trumpetings  and  crashinys,  and  the 
sound  of  breaking  branches  on  every  side  of  them. 

At  last  Kala  Nag  stood  still  between  two  tree-trunks  at  the  very 
top  of  the  hill.  They  were  part  of  a  circle  of  trees  that  grew  round 
an  irregular  space  of  some  three  or  four  acres,  and  in  all  that  space, 
as  Little  Toomai  could  see,  the  ground  had  been  trampled  down  as 

hard  as  a  brick  floor 

Little  Toomai  looked,  holding  his  breath,  with 

eyes  starting  out  of  his  head,  and  as  he  looked,  more  and  more  and 
more  elephants  swung  out  into  the  open  from  between  the  tree- 
trunks 

At  last  there  was  no  sound  of  any  more  elephants  moving  in  the 
forest,  and  Kala  Nag  rolled  out  from  his  station  between  the  trees 
and  went  into  the  middle  of  the  crowd,  clucking  and  gurgling,  and 
all  the  elephants  began  to  talk  in  their  own  tongue,  and  to  move  about. 

Still  lying  down,  Little  Toomai  looked  down  upon  scores  and 
scores  of  broad  backs,  and  wagging  ears,  and  tossing  trunks,  and 
little  rolling  eyes.  He  heard  the  click  of  tusks  as  they  crossed  other 
tusks  by  accident,  and  the  dry  rustle  of  trunks  twined  together,  and 
the  chafing  of  enormous  sides  and  shoulders  in  the  crowd,  and  the 
incessant  flick  and  'hissh'  of  the  great  tails.  Then  a  cloud  came 
over  the  moon,  and  he  sat  in  black  darkness;  but  the  quiet,  steady 
hustling  and  pushing  and  gurgling  went  on  just  the  same.  .  .  . 

Then  an  elephant  trumpeted,  and  they  all  took  it  up  for  five  or  ten 
terrible  seconds.  The  dew  from  the  trees  above  spattered  down 
like  rain  on  the  unseen  backs,  and  a  dull  booming  noise  began,  not 
very  loud  at  first,  and  Little  Toomai  could  not  tell  what  it  was;  but 
it  grew  and  grew,  and  Kala  Nag  lifted  up  one  fore  foot  and  then  the 
other,  and  brought  them  down  on  the  ground — one- two,  one- two,  as 
steadily  as  trip-hammers.  The  elephants  were  stamping  altogether 
now,  and  it  sounded  like  a  war-drum  beaten  at  the  mouth  of  a  cave. 
The  dew  fell  from  the  trees  till  there  was  no  more  left  to  fall,  and 
the  booming  went  on,  and  the  ground  rocked  and  shivered,  and  Little 
Toomai  put  his  hands  up  to  his  ears  to  shut  out  the  sound.  But  it 
was  all  one  gigantic  jar  that  ran  through  him — this  stamp  of  hundreds 
of  heavy  feet  on  the  raw  earth.  Once  or  twice  he  could  feel  Kala 
Nag  and  all  the  others  surge  forward  a  few  strides,  and  the  thumping 
would  change  to  the  crushing  sound  of  juicy  green  things  being 
bruised,  but  in  a  minute  or  two  the  boom  of  feet  on  hard  earth  began 
again 


188  THE  WRITING  OF  ENGLISH 

The  morning  broke  in  one  sheet  of  pale  yellow  behind  the  green 
hills,  and  the  booming  stopped  with  the  first  ray,  as  though  the  light 
had  been  an  order — Kipling. 

Out  of  nearly  a  hundred  verb  forms  used  in  this  passage,  not 
one-tenth  belong  to  the  static  verb  to  be.  The  Jungle  Books 
are  full  of  this  vivid,  rushing  description  of  moving  things, 
which  almost  takes  on  the  character  of  narration.  You  cannot 
do  better  than  read  them  if  you  wish  to  see  how  description 
can  be  made  as  interesting  as  a  story.  Perhaps  the  best  from 
this  point  of  view  are:  Kaa's  Hunting;  The  Spring  Running; 
The  Miracle  of  Purun  Bhagat;  How  Fear  Came;  Letting  in  the 
Jungle. 

ASSIGNMENT 

1.  Write  a  picture  of  movement  (300  words  or  more)  of  one  of 
the  following: 

(1)  An  exciting  game  of  football,  or  baseball;  (2)  a  tennis  tour- 
nament; (3)  a  boat  race. 

2.  Write  in  300  words,  from  the  point  of  view  of  a  person  in  an 
automobile,  impressions  of  a  drive  at  high  speed.     Be  definite   as 
to  the  time  of  year  and  of  day. 

3.  Write  in  300  words  the  changing  impressions  of  a  landscape 
as  seen  from  a  car  window. 

4.  Describe  in  100  words  each  of  the  following:  (1)  a  person's 
peculiar  walk;  (2)  a  squirrel  hunting  food;  (3)  a  dog  bent  on  general 
investigation;  (4)  a  cat  stalking  prey;  (5)  a  tree  in  a  storm. 


CHAPTER  XI 

EXPOSITION 

1.  METHODS 

WE  have  in  our  minds  certain  ideas  about  ourselves  and 
the  world,  derived  from  what  we  have  seen  and  thought  and 
felt;  when  we  try  to  explain  these  to  others,  we  are  using 
the  methods  of  exposition. 

These  methods  are  numerous  and  varied.  Let  us  see  how 
they  work. 

1.  Fifteen  or  twenty  years  ago  when  the  automobile  was 
in  its  infancy,  we  may  imagine  a  backwoodsman  meeting  for 
the  first  time  with  the  word  automobile  in  his  weekly  paper. 
Looking  up  at  his  wife,  who  is  more  widely  read  than  he,  he 
asks,  "What  does  this  word  mean?    What  is  an  automobile?" 
"  I  never  heard  the  word  before,"  says  she,  "  but  I'll  look  it  up 
in  the  dictionary."    There  she  finds:  "   ...  a  self-propelled 
vehicle  suitable  for  use  on  a  street  or  roadway."    The  dic- 
tionary has  explained  the  word  automobile  by  definition. 

2.  But  neither  of  them  quite  understands  this;  and  it  is  not 
until  the  man  returns  from  his  next  trip  to  town  that  he  is 
able  to  supply  the  explanation  they  both  wanted.    He  says 
to  his  wife,  "  I  saw  one  of  those  automobiles  in  town.    It's  a 
sort  of  wagon  that  goes  by  itself."    This  explanation,  or  ex- 
position, may  be  regarded  in  two  ways.    In  one  sense  it  is 
exposition  by  definition — this  time,  in  familiar  terms;  but 
it  also  may  be  regarded  as  a  re-wording  of  the  dictionary 
definition,  in  which  count  it  is  exposition  by  paraphrase. 

3.  But  the  woman  only  stares  at  her  husband:    Who  has 
ever  heard  of  a  wagon  that  goes  without  a  horse?    He  explains 


190  THE  WRITING  OF  ENGLISH 

further:  "You  go  by  yourself,  don't  you?  There's  something 
inside  you  that  makes  you  move  without  my  tugging  you 
along  at  every  step?  Well,  this  wagon  has  something  inside 
it  that  makes  it  go — I  don't  know  what  it  is."  What  has 
the  man  done  now?  He  has  amplified  his  former  statement 
and  illustrated  it  by  a  similar  case.  He  has  used  more  words, 
in  the  hope  of  making  a  deeper  impression,  and  he  has  ap- 
pealed to  his  wife's  knowledge  of  what  seems  to  him  a  sim- 
ilar case.  He  has  used  exposition  by  amplification  and 
illustration. 

4.  The  next  time  the  man  comes  home  he  tells  his  wife:  "I 
saw  a  lot  of  those  automobiles  going  down  the  new  road 
to-day.    They're  four-wheeled,  and  have  big  rubber  tires  on 
their  wheels,  and  some  of  them  have  tops  like  buggy- tops; 
and  they  all  have  a  wheel  in  front  which  the  driver  holds  and 
keeps  turning — I  guess  it  steers  the  thing.    And  they  make 
a  noise  as  they  go;  it  sounds  like  a  steam-engine;  that  must 
be  the  machinery  that  makes  it  go."    Now  the  man  has  tried 
another  method;  he  has  tried  to  make  his  wife  understand 
these  unknown  vehicles  by  describing  how  they  all  look  and 
sound.    So  far  he  is  using  the  method  of  exposition  by  gen- 
eralized description.    But  how  does  this  differ  from  ordinary 
description?     Perhaps  she  interrupts  his  account  to  ask: 
"  What  color  are  they ? "    He  answers :  "Oh,  different  colors — 
some  red,  some  black,  some  other  colors."    She  asks:  "How 
big?"    He  answers:  "Different  sizes;  some  not  much  bigger 
than  a  small  wagon,  some  twice  as  big."     In  description 
proper  this  range  of  variation  in  color  and  size  is  impossible, 
because  description  deals  with  individual  things;  exposition, 
on  the  other  hand,  sometimes,  as  here,  deals  with  classes. 
But  the  poor  woman  is  more  confused  than  ever  as  to  what 
an  automobile  really  is. 

5.  An  automobile  manufacturer,  who  is  taking  his  vacation 
by  riding  through  the  mountains  on  horseback,  comes  to 
spend  the  night  at  the  cabin.    The  backwoodsman  says  to 


EXPOSITION  191 

him:  "These  automobiles  are  wonderful  things.  I  don't 
understand  them."  The  manufacturer  takes  a  sheet  of  paper 
and  makes  a  drawing  on  it,  saying:  "I  will  explain  it  to  you. 
An  automobile  is  made  up  of  so  many  parts —  '  Here  he 
names  the  body,  the  wheels,  the  steering-gear,  the  engine, 
the  carburetor,  the  tank,  etc.  This  is  exposition  by  division. 
After  the  stranger  has  divided  the  idea  of  the  car  into  its 
main  parts,  he  may  subdivide  each  of  these  parts  into  its 
parts  until  he  gets  down  to  a  part  that  cannot  be  subdivided. 
He  can  divide  the  tire,  for  instance,  into  casing  and  tube; 
but  he  cannot  subdivide  these;  at  this  point  he  has  reached 
simplicity.  But  when  he  has  subdivided  the  machine  into 
its  units,  the  backwoodsman  and  his  wife  look  at  the  drawings 
of  these — or  listen  to  the  description  of  them — as  if  they  were 
the  pieces  of  a  picture  puzzle  thrown  into  confusion.  The 
method  of  division  has  given  them  less  idea  than  they  had 
before  of  the  automobile. 

6.  So  the  manufacturer  does  not  stop  there.    First,  he  ex- 
plains how  the  parts  are  put  together  in  the  making  of  the 
machine;  he  repeats  the  details  of  the  process  that  is  gone 
through  every  time  an  automobile  is  assembled.     This  is 
exposition  by  generalized  narration.    It  differs  from  ordinary 
narration  in  that  it  relates  not  a  single  series  of  events,  but  a 
series  of  events  indefinitely  repeated  in  the  same  way.    But 
in  this  case,  it  is  probable  that  exposition  by  generalized 
narration  is  less  clear  to  the  listeners  than  to  the  speaker. 

7.  The  man  says:  "  I  see  now  how  it  goes  together;  but  how 
does  it  work?  "  The  guest  says :  "  You  know  how  a  locomotive 
is  driven  by  steam.    The  steam  is  admitted  into  the  cylinders, 
where  it  expands  and  pushes  the  pistons,  which  in  turn  move 
the  wheels.     An  automobile  has  a  similar  arrangement  of 
cylinders  and  pistons,  and  the  motive  power  is  gas,  obtained 
from  gasoline.     This  gas,  mixed  with  air,  is  admitted  into 
the  cylinders  and  there  is  exploded  by  an  electric  spark. 
The  explosion  of  the  gas  pushes  the  pistons  just  as  the  explo- 


192  THE  WRITING  OF  ENGLISH 

sion  of  steam  does."  And  this  is  exposition  by  cause  and 
effect.  This  method  is  the  only  one  that  really  explains  how 
it  is  that  the  automobile  is  self-propelling. 

8.  By  this  time  the  backwoodsman  has  some  idea  of  an 
automobile,  but  his  wife,  who  has  never  seen  one,  is  still  very 
vague  about  the  matter.    Suddenly  a  car  drives  up  to  the 
door.     The  backwoodsman  calls  his  wife,  saying:  "Look, 
Amanda,  this  is  an  automobile.    Here  is  the  steering-gear, 
these  are  the  levers,  this  is  the  tank,  this  is  the  engine"  .  .  . 
and  so  on  until  he  has  explained  to  her  that  all  the  essential 
parts  and  qualities  of  any  automobile,  as  they  were  explained 
to  him  by  their  guest,  are  to  be  found  in  this  particular 
machine.    This  is  exposition  by  example — finding  the  general 
in  the  particular.     And  now  for  the  first  time  the  woman 
really  understands  what  an  automobile  is  and  how  it  works. 

9.  But  we  have  not  yet  exhausted  the  possibilities  of  ex- 
position.   The  owner  of  the  car,  as  it  happens,  knows  the 
manufacturer,  who  is  still  at  the  cabin,  and  the  two  men 
greet  each  other.     "How  is  she  doing?"  asks  the  manufac- 
turer, referring  to  the  car.    "So-so,"  says  the  owner.    "She 
drinks  up  a  good  deal  of  gas;  but  she  eats  up  the  roads  better 
than  my  last,  and  she  doesn't  bump  so  much.    I  guess  she's 
worth  her  keep."    What  is  he  doing?    He  is  explaining  the 
qualities — not  of  automobiles  in  general,  but  of  this  particular 
car;  and  he  does  so  by  simple  enumeration,  in  this  case  with 
some  contrast.    He  does  not  describe  the  car — they  are  all 
looking  at  it;  he  simply  states  the  results  of  his  observations 
and  inferences,   at  the  same  time  comparing  them  with 
earlier  observations  and  inferences.     This  is  exposition  by 
enumeration  of  qualities.    The  method  may  be  used  alone, 
or  in  connection  with  comparison  and  contrast  of  the  qual- 
ities of  other  similar  or  very  different  things. 

10.  But  we  may  go  even  a  step  further.    The  manufacturer 
says:  "I  see.    If  you  hadn't  told  me,  I  could  have  gathered 
as  much  from  her  looks."    Then  he  adds  that  the  lines  of 


EXPOSITION  193 

construction  show  that  the  car  was  built  for  speed,  that  he 
can  see  the  shock-absorber,  and  has  observed  various  other 
details,  which  show  what  its  qualities  must  be.  This  is  the 
method  of  characterization  applied  to  the  explanation  of  a 
particular  thing. 

We  may  now  perhaps  consider  that  the  automobile  has 
served  its  turn,  and  proceed  to  sum  up  our  results.  It  is 
clear  that  we  have  the  choice  of  many  methods  in  our  efforts 
to  explain;  also  that  the  method  is  to  some  extent  dependent 
upon  the  idea  itself  or  the  form  in  which  it  is  expressed.  What 
is  a  kris?  It  is  a  dagger.  Paraphrase  is  all  that  is  needed 
here.  "It's  an  ill  wind  that  blows  nobody  good" — did  this 
proverb  ever  puzzle  you?  Change  its  form  and  amplify: 
There  is  nothing  so  bad  that  it  does  not  prove  of  advantage 
to  somebody.  Is  not  the  idea  clear  now?  If  not,  you  can 
make  it  so  by  giving  an  example.  What  is  fly-fishing?  How 
can  you  give  any  idea  of  it  except  by  generalized  narration, 
with  generalized  description  of  the  flies?  What  is  electricity? 
How  can  you  explain  it  except  in  terms  of  cause  and  effect? 
What  is  our  federal  government?  It  is — by  definition — the 
system  by  which  the  people  of  the  United  States  are  governed. 
But  definition  tells  us  nothing  at  all  about  it.  By  division 
we  explain  the  idea  in  terms  of  its  three  main  branches: 
executive,  legislative,  and  judicial;  and  subdivide  these  into 
the  president  and  cabinet;  the  two  houses  of  Congress;  and 
the  three  types  of  federal  courts.  With  the  president  the 
process  of  division  stops;  but  the  cabinet  can  be  subdivided 
into  its  departments;  and  Congress  and  the  courts  into  their 
constituent  members.  Of  this  complex  organism,  our  Gov- 
ernment, then,  definition  gives  no  idea  whatever;  division 
gives  a  clear  and  definite  impression,  as  far  as  it  goes;  but 
when  its  limit  has  been  reached,  we  must  resort  to  various 
other  methods  of  exposition  in  order  to  explain  fully  so  in- 
tricate a  thing.  Similarly,  the  exposition  of  a  character  may 
proceed  by  mere  enumeration  of  qualities;  or  it  may  illustrate 


194  THE  WRITING  OF  ENGLISH 

these  qualities  by  means  of  speech,  action,  habits,  appearance; 
or  it  may  interpret  by  setting  forth  the  causes  that  have 
produced  such  a  person,  or  by  showing  the  influence  of  this 
person;  or  it  may  use  all  these  methods  in  combination. 

The  fundamental  thing  to  remember  about  exposition  is 
that  it  is  always  looking  for  the  general  truth.  It  may  deal 
entirely  with  the  class,  or  with  general  ideas  or  principles;  it 
may  explain  the  general  by  means  of  the  individual  which 
is  used  to  represent  it;  it  may  explain  the  particular  by 
means  of  its  qualities;  but  it  is  always  concerned  with  looking 
away  from  particular  impressions  and  observations  and  in- 
ferences to  the  general  truth  that  builds  them  into  a  system 
of  relationships. 

ASSIGNMENT 

1.  Identify  the  methods  of  exposition  used  in  the  extracts  quoted 
on  pp.  300f.  and  355f. 

Explain  how  other  methods  might  have  been  used  in  certain  cases, 
and  show  the  differences  in  effectiveness. 

2.  Suggest  methods  of  exposition  that  might  be  used  in  explaining 
each  of  the  following 

(1)  Radium  as  a  Remedy 

(2)  Labor  Unions 

(3)  How  to  Play  Golf  (or  some  other  game) 

(4)  My  Weak  Points  in  English 

(5)  The  Building  of  a  Sky-Scraper 

(6)  The  American  Farmer 

(7)  The  Influence  of  the  Colleges  on  Political  Life 

(8)  American  Inventions 

(9)  The  Spirit  of  Chicago  (or  some  other  place) 
(10)  Camouflage 

3.  Find  a  short  piece  of  exposition  in  one  of  the  magazines — 
popular  or  professional — and  note  for  class  discussion  the  methods- 
employed. 

2.  DEFINITION 

We  use  definition  to  explain  a  class  of  things  unknown  to 
us.  We  read:  "There  were  a  thousand  arbalests  in  the 


EXPOSITION  195 

castle.  .  .  ."  What  are  arbalests?  Cheeses  or  coats-of- 
mail?  Definition  will  tell  us  by  a  double  process  of  classifica- 
tion: (1)  by  referring  the  unknown  class — arbalest — to  a 
larger  class  with  which  we  are  familiar — let  us  say  weapon; 
and  (2)  by  naming  the  essential  point  of  difference  between 
the  smaller  class  (arbalest)  and  all  other  classes  included 
within  the  larger  class  (weapon)  to  which  it  has  just  been 
referred;  in  this  case  the  difference  is  that  it  consists  of  a 
steel  bow  set  in  a  wooden  shaft.  In  technical  language,  the 
class  which  we  are  defining  is  called  the  species;  the  larger 
class  to  which  it  is  referred  on  the  basis  of  common  prop- 
erties, the  genus;  and  the  peculiar  quality  by  which  the 
species  is  distinguished  from  every  other  species  within  the 
genus,  the  differentia.  We  may  represent  definition  thus: 
Species  Genus  Differentia 

arbalest  weapon  having  steel  bow  set  in 

wooden  shaft 

The  genus  weapon  includes  innumerable  species — gun,  sword, 
dagger,  spear,  cannon,  etc. — but  none  of  these  species  has 
the  differentia  "consisting  of  a  steel  bow  set  in  a  wooden 
shaft."  Arbalest  is  the  only  species  of  which  this  is  true. 
Consequently,  when  we  have  named  the  genus  and  differen- 
tia of  arbalest,  we  understand  that  it  is  a  weapon  different 
from  every  other  weapon  in  the  world.  We  do  not  yet 
know  much  about  it;  but  we  have  at  least  set  it  apart — 
put  a  fence  around  it  (define  =fix  limits} — as  preliminary  to 
further  examination.  Definition  is  merely  the  first  step  in  the 
understanding  of  an  idea. 

But  to  be  of  any  value  a  definition  must  be  at  once  close 
and  accurate. 

To  be  close,  it  must  use  the  smallest  genus  that  will  con- 
tain the  species;  to  be  accurate,  it  must  use  a  differentia  that 
belongs  to  one  species  alone. 

For  instance,  the  genus  weapon  is  enormous  and  contains 
innumerable  species  many  of  which  differ  so  widely  from 


196    ,  THE  WRITING  OF  ENGLISH 

arbalest  that  when  we  first  think  of  weapon  we  may  get  an 
idea  extremely  unlike  the  kind  of  weapon  that  an  arbalest 
really  is.  To  define  more  closely,  we  may  say  that  an 
arbalest  is  a  bow;  we  have  now  shut  out  guns,  swords,  spears, 
daggers,  and  many  other  kinds  of  weapons.  But  can  we  get 
closer  still?  There  are  longbows  and  crossbows;  an  arbalest 
is  a  crossbow.  Then  a  close  definition  of  arbalest  is 

Species  Genus  Differentia 

arbalest  crossbow  constructed  with  a  steel  bow 

and  wooden  shaft 

This  definition  is  as  close  as  possible,  and  as  no  other  cross- 
bow has  the  same  differentia,  it  is  also  accurate. 

But  to  be  accurate,  a  definition  must  be  referred  to  the 
proper  genus.  It  is  inaccurate  to  say  that  an  arbalest  is  a 
longbow  constructed  with  a  steel  bow  and  a  wooden  shaft, 
because  an  arbalest  is  not  a  longbow  at  all.  The  genus  long- 
bom  like  the  genus  crossbow  is  included  within  the  larger  class 
weapon;  but  the  two  genera  are  mutually  exclusive:  no  long- 
bow is  a  crossbow,  and  vice  versa;  and  no  longbow  has  the 
differentia  which  is  peculiar  to  the  crossbow.  Consequently, 
in  making  longbow  the  genus  for  arbalest,  the  definition  be- 
comes incorrect. 

Although  in  definition  we  classify  our  species  into  only 
one  genus,  note  that  each  species  may  be  a  genus  for  a  smaller 
group  of  things,  and  each  genus  a  species  for  a  larger  group. 
Thus  an  arbalest  is  regarded  as  a  species  in  defining  it; 
but  it  is  a  genus  of  which  Florentine  arbalest  (for  which  no 
special  name  is  known)  is  a  species;  crossbow,  which  is  a 
genus  to  which  we  have  referred  arbalest  is  in  turn  a  species 
with  reference  to  bow;  and  bow  in  turn,  which  is  a  genus 
to  which  crossbow  and  longbow  may  be  referred,  is  in  turn  a 
species  with  reference  to  the  huge  genus  weapon.  Thus  we 
have  a  whole  series  of  classes,  each  including  the  one  below 
it,  which  in  turn  includes  fewer  members  than  the  one  above. 


EXPOSITION  197 

A  close  definition  brings  the  species  and  genus  as  near  to- 
gether as  possible.  In  a  scientific  definition  where  all  the 
branches  of  a  system  are  understood  by  the  person  for 
whom  the  definition  is  made,  the  relationship  between  genus 
and  species  leaves  no  gap;  but  in  a  popular  definition  a  cer- 
tain degree  of  looseness  is  often  inevitable  for  the  sake  of 
clearness.  Thus  the  reference  of  the  species  butterfly  to  the 
genus  lepidopterons  insects  is  close,  but  it  is  meaningless  to 
the  man  who  does  not  know  the  qualities  of  these  insects. 

The  ideal  in  making  a  definition  is  to  have  it  as  close  as  is 
compatible  with  the  understanding  of  the  people  to  whom 
it  is  to  serve  as  an  explanation.  The  process  of  making 
definitions  is  valuable  training  in  exact  thinking.  As  you 
practice  it,  you  will  observe  that  definitions  in  the  small 
dictionaries  are  often  loose  and  inexact — partly  because  they 
must  be  brief  and  partly  because  they  must  be  intelligible  to 
persons  of  no  technical  knowledge — and  that  they  must  be 
improved  upon  in  the  definitions  that  you  make  for  your 
own  use,  if  you  are  to  develop  habits  of  sound  and  scientific 
thinking. 

ASSIGNMENT 

1.  Define,  without  using  the  dictionary,  by  reference  to  a  genus 
with  a  differentia  each  of  the  following:  cat;  piano;  newspaper; 
machine-gun;  aeroplane;  chrysanthemum;  astrology;  chauffeur;  hike; 
hyphen;  monster;  clock;  compass. 

2.  Look  up  these  words  in  the  best  dictionary  available;  defend 
your  definitions  when  you  can;  and  correct  them  when  you  cannot. 

3.  Look  up  the  following  words  in  the  dictionary;  note  the  genus 
and  differentia  separately:  journeyman;  falcon;  fritillary,  casern, 
architrave;  radiograph;  pentagram;  octopus;  rococo.;  ukase. 

4.  Try  to  find  at  least  one  different  genus  and  another  differ- 
entia for  each  of  the  things  named  in  3.     Criticize  the  resulting 
definitions  as  to  closeness  and  accuracy. 

5.  Consider  each  of  the  things  defined  in  the  preceding  exercises 
as  subject  to  further  exposition,  and  decide  in  each  case  what 
methods  it  would  be  best  to  use. 


198  THE  WRITING  OF  ENGLISH 

3.  DIVISION 

Anything  that  is  organized  can  be  explained  by  the  method 
of  division.    We  may  think  vaguely  of  a  cathedral  as  a  big 
church;  we  may  read  of  it  as  a  church  containing  the  cathedra, 
or  bishop's  throne;  and  still  we  have  no  real  understanding 
of  the  structural  differences  between  a  church  and  a  cathedral. 
But  if  we  divide  the  general  idea  cathedral  into  its  architec- 
tural divisions,  we  have: 
I.  The  cathedral  church 
II.  The  cloisters 
III.  The  chapter  house 

We  see  now  that  a  cathedral  is  much  more  than  an  ordinary 
church.  But  we  can  continue  the  process  of  division  for  the 
church: 

I.  The  cathedral  church 

A.  The  nave 

B.  The  transepts 

C.  The  choir 

D.  The  chancel 

E.  The  chapels 

F.  Thetriforium 

In  this  way  we  approach  much  nearer  to  a  conception  of  a 
cathedral  than  by  definition.  Note,  however,  that  we  may 
call  definition  in  to  explain  nave,  triforium,  and  other  terms 
that  we  do  not  understand. 

The  process  of  division  may  be  carried  as  far  as  there  is 
anything  to  divide;  that  is,  until  the  subhead  reached  is 
a  unit  that  cannot  further  be  dismembered  into  its  parts. 
You  may  divide  an  apple  into  skin,  pulp,  core,  seeds,  and 
stem;  beyond  that  point  you  cannot  find  any  parts  that 
form  units  in  the  organization.  But  the  more  complex 
the  subject  is,  the  more  advantageous  is  division  as  a  method 
of  exposition.  True,  it  does  not  go  very  far;  but  it  furnishes 
a  sort  of  ground  plan  for  a  subject,  which  can  then  be  fur- 


EXPOSITION  199 

ther  explained  in  other  ways.     By  division,  the  subject  A 
College  would  be  set  out  perhaps  under  two  main  heads: 
I.  The  officers 
II.  The  students 
Each  of  these  would  subdivide: 
I.  The  officers 

A.  The  president 

B.  The  board  of  trustees 

C.  The  faculty 

1.  The  department  of  philosophy 

a.  The  head  of  the  department 

b.  Professors 

c.  Associate  professors, 

d.  Assistant  professors 

e.  Instructors 

f.  Assistants 

2.  The  department  of  history 

3.  The  department  of  English,  etc. 
II.  The  students 

A.  Graduates 

B.  Seniors 

C.  Juniors 

D.  Sophomores    * 

E.  Freshmen 

F.  Unclassified 

This  is  of  course  not  a  complete  division;  and  in  the  case  of 
a  University,  with  its  various  schools,  the  division  would  be 
far  more  elaborate.  You  see  at  once  how  far  beyond  the 
dictionary  definition  of  college  the  process  of  division  carries 
you. 

To  be  satisfactory,  division  must  be:  (1)  complete — that  is, 
all  the  parts  taken  together  must  equal  the  whole;  and 
(2)  based  upon  the  same  principle  throughout  so  that  the 
parts  are  mutually  exclusive,  and  do  not  overlap.  Thus  you 
may  divide  triangles  into: 


200  THE  WRITING  OF  ENGLISH 

I.  Equilateral  II.  Isosceles  III.  Scalene. 
There  are  no  triangles  that  do  not  fall  under  one  of  these 
three  heads;  the  three  heads  taken  together  are  equivalent 
to  the  main  head;  and  the  three  heads  are  mutually  exclusive, 
so  that  no  triangle  can  be  classified  under  more  than  one. 
But  if  you  divide  triangles  into 

I.  Equilateral  II.  Isosceles  III.  Right-angled 
your  division  is  wrong  in  two  ways:  (1)  it  is  incomplete  be- 
cause it  does  not  include  scalene  triangles;  and  (2)  II  and 
III  overlap  because  with  III  a  different  principle  of  division 
has  been  introduced:  the  division  began  on  the  basis  of 
equality  or  inequality  of  the  lines,  and  ended  on  the  basis 
of  angles.  On  the  second  principle  the  division  should  have 
been: 

I.  Right-angled  II.  Acute-angled  III.  Obtuse-angled. 
Similarly,  the  division  of  cathedral,  which  was  begun  on  an 
architectural  principle,  could  not  have  been  made  to  include 
the  bishop,  the  dean,  and  the  music  as  parts;  nor  could  the 
division  of  college,  which  was  made  on  the  principle  of  con- 
stituent members,  have  included  such  heads  as  the  campus, 
the  chapel,  and  the  athletic  field. 

In  dividing  a  subject,  remember:  (1)  to  use  a  single  prin- 
ciple or  basis  of  division  throughout,  or  you  will  have  over- 
lapping; and  (2)  to  use  a  sufficient  principle  or  basis,  or  you 
will  omit  some  parts  of  the  subject. 

ASSIGNMENT 

1.  Make  a  complete  division  of  the  subject  "The  Working  of 
our  Government"  for  a  paper  unlimited  in  length. 

2.  Suggest  as  many  principles  of  division  as  you  can  for  each  of 
the  following.     Remember  that  each  different  principle  involves  a 
restating  of  the  subject  which  may  broaden  or  narrow  it:  Our 
Banking  System;  Our  Railroad  System;  Our  Navy;  Our  Army; 
Dressmaking;  The  Herring  Industry;  Bookmaking;  Social  Settle- 
ments; Aeroplanes;  Electrical  Comforts. 

3.  Narrow  to  the  limits  of  a  500-word  paper  each  of  the  following 


EXPOSITION  201 

subjects:  Photography;  Vegetable  Dyes;  Ship-building;  Modern 
Artistic  Furniture. 

4.  Criticize  and  correct  the  following  divisions: 

I.  Ships  Used  in  Warfare  To-day 

1.  Steamers  , 

2.  Turbines 

3.  Converted  Liners 

4.  Destroyers 

5.  Boats  of  Reinforced  Concrete 

6.  Fishing-boats 

7.  Submarines 

8.  German  Types  of  Boats 
II.  Famous  Gardens 

1.  English 

2.  Italian 

3.  Formal 

4.  Made  by  famous  people 

5.  Renowned  for  their  beauty 

6.  Containing  unusual  features 

III.  Women  in  Literature 

1.  Novelists 

2.  Englishwomen 

3.  Aristocrats 

4.  Married  women 

5.  Self-made  women 

6.  Geniuses 

IV.  The  Genius  of  Milton 

1.  His  life 

2.  His  political  career 

3.  His  prose 

4.  His  Paradise  Lost 

5.  His  poems 

6.  His  blindness 

7.  His  place  to-day 
V.  Poetry  of  To-day 

1.  Dramatic 

2.  Free  verse 

3.  Lyric 

4.  Imitative 

5.  Under  French  influence 

6.  The  American  note 

7.  Its  future 


202  THE  WRITING  OF  ENGLISH 

4.  EXEMPLIFICATION 

Exposition  by  means  of  examples  is  one  of  the  most  effect- 
ive ways  of  making  ideas  clear.  The  concrete  is  always 
easier  to  understand  than  the  abstract.  You  hear  people 
say,  again  and  again,  when  a  generalization  is  made,  "For 
example?"  And  a  good  example  often  saves  much  time  and 
energy. 

Examples  are  of  two  kinds: 

(1)  An  individual  used  to  represent  the  class.    Thus  when 
we  say:  "Jonathan  Bradford  is  a  typical  Yankee,"  the  sen- 
tence brings  to  our  minds  a  group  of  qualities  which  we 
think  of  as  found  in  varying  degrees  in  all  New  Englanders. 

(2)  The  particular  instance  of  the  working  of  a  law  or 
principle.    Thus  we  may  illustrate  the  law  of  gravity  by  the 
example  of  apples  falling  from  the  tree;  the  theory  of  com- 
pensation by  a  case  of  character  developed  through  loss  of 
wealth;  the  proverb,  "A  new  broom  sweeps  clean,"  by  an 
example  taken  from  political  life. 

To  use  exemplification  successfully,  several  conditions  are 
necessary: 

1.  The  most  important  is  that  the  example  should  be  at 
once  recognized  as  really  representing  the  class  that  it  stands 
for  or  as  illustrating  the  principle  that  is  supposed  to  be 
working  in  it. 

2.  The  example  itself  must  be  interesting,   must  have 
point,  must  be  treated  much  in  the  manner  of  the  anecdote, 
if  it  is  to  make  a  deep  impression.    In  making  it  interesting 
all  the  methods  of  narration  and  description  may  be  called 
in. 

3.  It  is  much  better  as  a  rule  to  develop  one  striking  exam- 
ple well  and  fully  than  to  use  several,  even  if  they  are  all 
good;  one  tends  to  blur  the  impression  of  another. 

4.  If  several  are  used,  they  must  be  arranged  in  the  order 
of  climax,  or  the  reader's  interest  will  diminish  as  he  proceeds. 


EXPOSITION  203 

The  only  point  of  difficulty  in  the  use  of  exemplification 
is  in  dealing  with  the  particular  qualities  of  an  individual 
who  is  used  as  a  type  of  his  class.  If  you  ignore  his  peculiar 
qualities,  he  is  likely  to  be  little  more  than  a  "made-up" 
type.  If  you  include  his  peculiarities,  you  are  in  danger  of 
individualizing  him  to  such  an  extent  that  he  ceases  to  rep- 
resent his  class.  The  way  to  avoid  these  two  extremes  is 
to  show  by  unmistakable  language  when  you  are  referring 
to  the  individual  and  when  to  the  class.  In  the  following 
quotations  you  will  see  two  ways  of  doing  this.  The  first 
describes  an  individual  with  continual  reference  (shown  by 
italics)  to  the  class  that  he  represents;  and  the  second  de- 
scribes two  people  without  reference  to  their  class,  allowing 
free  play  to  individual  peculiarities,  and  only  at  the  end  in- 
troduces the  expository  sentence  in  the  summary  telling  that 
they  represented  a  class. 

Now,  although  an  architect  by  profession,  he  appeared  to  be 
anxious  to  be  mistaken  for  a  sporting  squire.  He  wore  very  baggy 
knickerbockers  and  leggings,  and  a  cap.  This  raiment  was  appar- 
ently the  agreed  uniform  of  the  easy  classes  in  the  Five  Towns;  for 
in  the  crowd  I  had  noticed  several  such  consciously  superior  figures 
among  the  artisans.  Mr.  Brindley,  like  most  of  the  people  in  the 
station,  had  a  slightly  pinched  and  chilled  air,  as  though  that  morn- 
ing he  had  by  inadvertence  omitted  to  don  those  garments  which 
are  not  seen.  He  also,  like  most  of  the  people  there,  but  not  to  the 
same  extent,  had  a  somewhat  suspicious  and  narrowly  shrewd  re- 
gard, as  who  should  say:  "If  any  person  thinks  he  can  get  the  better 
of  me  by  a  trick,  let  him  try — that's  all." — Arnold  Bennett. 

It  was  a  20  h.  p.  Panhard,  and  was  worth  over  a  thousand  pounds 
as  it  stood  there,  throbbing,  and  Harold  was  proud  of  it. 

He  was  also  proud  of  his  young  wife,  Maud,  who,  clad  in  several 
hundred  pounds'  worth  of  furs,  had  taken  her  seat  next  to  the 
steering-wheel,  and  was  waiting  for  Harold  to  mount  by  her  side. 
The  united  ages  of  this  handsome  and  gay  couple  came  to  less  than 
forty-five. 

And  they  owned  the  motor-car,  and  Bleakridge  House  with  its 
ten  bedrooms,  and  another  house  at  Llandudno,  and  a  controlling 
interest  in  Etches,  Limited,  that  brought  them  in  seven  or  eight 


204  THE  WRITING  OF  ENGLISH 

thousand  a  year.    They  were  a  pretty  tidy  example  of  what  the  Five 
Towns  can  do  when  it  tries  to  be  wealthy. — Arnold  Bennett. 

ASSIGNMENT 

1.  What  qualities  of  Americans  do  you  find  in  the  familiar  car- 
toon of  Uncle  Sam?     Does  the  figure  represent  the  American  of 
to-day?     Have  you  seen  cartoons  in  which  an  effort  was  made  to 
bring  the  type  up  to  date?     How  did  they  differ  from  the  usual 
cartoon?    Write  200  words  on  this  subject. 

2.  What  qualities  of  the  British  soldier  are  summed  up  in  Tommy 
Atkins?    If  you  cannot  answer  this  question,  read  some  of  the  stories 
in  Kipling's  Soldiers  Three  and  some  of  the  poems  in  Barrack  Room 
Ballads  until  you  have  an  answer. 

3.  Examine  a  text-book  in  some  science  with  which  you  are  famil- 
iar, and  mark  for  class  discussion  the  three  best  illustrative  passages 
that  you  can  find  of  the  process  of  explaining  a  principle  by  means 
of  examples. 

4.  Make  a  list  of  as  many  proverbs  as  you  can  remember  or  find 
— ten  at  least,  and  as  many  more  as  possible.     Explain  them  orally 
by  examples. 

5.  Write  a  200-word  paper  on   the  proverb  which  can  be  best 
illustrated  out  of  your  own  experience.     Look  for  examples  that 
will  strike  the  attention  because  they  are  both  somewhat  out  of 
the  ordinary  line  of  experience  and  in  themselves  picturesque  or 
otherwise  interesting. 

6.  Expand  the  following  quotation  into  a  300-word  newspaper 
article  by  means  of  examples: 

"  It  is  the  utter  absence  of  anything  approaching  culture  that 
makes  American  politics  so  deadly.  It  is  an  unmitigated  affliction 
for  a  man  of  any  taste  to  have  to  attend  a  political  convention  and 
write  about  the  doings  of  a  mess  of  politicians,  or  to  sit  in  the  halls 
of  Congress  and  listen  to  the  vapid  speeches  of  the  so-called  repre- 
sentatives of  the  people.  It  is  more  than  afflictive;  it  is  depressing." 

5.  PARAPHRASE  AND  AMPLIFICATION 

In  regard  to  the  use  of  paraphrase  in  exposition  the  only 
thing  to  be  said  is  that  as  it  is  the  substitution  of  familiar 
terms  for  unfamiliar,  it  must  always  be  simpler  than  its 
original,  or  it  fails  of  its  purpose.  Amplification,  with  or 


EXPOSITION  205 

without  illustration,  is  commonly  found  with  paraphrase; 
and  it  also  implies  simplification.  A  single  example  will 
suffice  for  both  methods: 

There  is  an  Oriental  proverb :  Remember  that  the  friend  of 
your  friend  has  a  friend.  What  does  it  mean?  Every  word 
is  clear,  every  construction  is  clear,  and  the  literal  statement 
is  true.  But  what  of  it?  A  friend  is  one  to  whom  you  may 
open  your  heart  in  full  confidence  that  he  will  regard  your 
interests  as  his  own.  If  you  tell  your  friend  a  secret,  you  be- 
lieve that  he  will  keep  it;  but  he  believes  the  same  of  his 
friend,  and  passes  the  secret  on;  and  presently  it  is  no  secret. 
A  secret  told  to  one  trustworthy  person  seems  safe;  but  if 
everyone  acts  on  this  theory,  there  can  be  no  secrets. 

The  meaning  of  the  proverb  becomes  understood  simply 
by  repeating  it  in  other  words  and  at  greater  length.  This 
method  of  exposition  is  often  reinforced  by  the  use  of  illus- 
tration or  example,  as  you  will  readily  see  is  possible  in  this 
case. 

Paraphrase  and  amplification  are  particularly  useful  to 
explain  ideas  expressed  elliptically  or  figuratively. 

ASSIGNMENT 

1.  Explain  orally  by  paraphrase  or  amplification,  with  or  without 
illustration,  the  following: 

(1)  Birds  of  a  feather  flock  together. 

(2)  A  bird  in  the  hand  is  worth  two  in  the  bush. 

(3)  "Men  in  great  place  are  thrice  servants:  servants  of  the 
sovereign  or  state;  servants  of  fame;  and  servants  of  business." 

(4)  "He  that  hath  wife  and   children    hath  given  hostages  to 
fortune." 

(5)  "For  a  crowd  is  not  company;  and  faces  are  but  a  gallery  of 
pictures;  and  talk  but  a  tinkling  cymbal,  where  there  is  no  love." 

(6)  "Certainly,  if  a  man  would  give  it  a  hard  phrase,  those  that 
want  friends  to  open  themselves  unto  are  cannibals  of  their  own 
hearts." 

(7)  "Your  young  men  shall  see  visions,  and  your  old  men  shall 
dream  dreams." 


206  THE  WRITING  OF  ENGLISH 

2.  Look  up  one  of  the  following  statements  in  every  way  that 
seems  necessary,  and  write  a  brief  exposition  of  it: 

(1)  "Speech  is  like  cloth  of  Arras,  opened  and  put  abroad; 
whereby  the  imagery  doth  appear  in  figure;  whereas  in  thoughts 
they  lie  but  as  in  packs." 

(2)  "  Dry  light  is  best." 

(3)  "But  the  iniquity  of  oblivion  blindly  scattereth  her  poppy, 
and  deals  with  the  memory  of  men  without  distinction  to  merit  of 
perpetuity." 

(4)  "Circles  and  right  lines  limit  and  close  all  bodies,  and  the 
mortal  right-lined  circle  must  conclude  and  shut  up  all." 

(5)  "I  cannot  praise  a  fugitive  and  cloistered  virtue,  unexercised 
and  unbreathed,  that  never  sallies  out  and  sees  her  adversary,  but 
slinks  out  of  the  race,  where  that  immortal  garland  is  to  be  run  for 
not  without  dust  and  heat." 


6.  GENERALIZED  DESCRIPTION  AND  NARRATION 

The  methods  of  generalized  description  and  narration  need 
but  little  discussion.  They  are  concerned  not  with  reproduc- 
ing the  things  and  events  by  which  we  are  surrounded,  but 
with  explaining  the  classification  of  them  by  setting  forth 
the  composite  impression  made  upon  the  mind  through  the 
physical  properties  common  to  all  the  members  of  a  class. 

Generalized  description  may  be  written  in  the  singular  or 
plural,  giving  the  range  of  variation  of  the  shared  properties; 
as,  for  instance,  in  describing  some  species  of  animal,  the 
variations  in  habitat,  size,  colors,  markings,  etc.,  would  all 
be  indicated.  The  result  would  be,  not  a  picture  of  one 
animal  of  this  kind,  but  a  basis  for  identifying  any  member  of 
the  class  through  knowledge  of  the  physical  properties  of  the 
class  as  a  whole.  This  kind  of  generalized  description  is  used 
much  in  scientific  writing. 

Again,  generalized  description  may  be  written  by  striking 
an  average,  as  it  were,  of  the  properties  of  the  members  of 
the  class,  and  describing  a  non-existent  member  regarded  as 
a  type  of  the  class.  This  method  makes  a  stronger,  because  / 


EXPOSITION  207 

more  sharply  defined,  impression;  hence  it  is  better  for  pop- 
ular exposition  than  the  scientific  method. 

Generalized  narration  of  a  sequence  of  events,  as  "A 
Freshman  Day,"  should  be  distinguished  from  generalized 
description  of  a  process,  as  "Learning  to  Swim."  The 
description,  of  course,  does  not  differ  from  the  description  of 
a  static  thing  except  as  it  involves  the  element  of  change. 

Note  that  the  generalized  description  may  be  expressed  in 
the  first  or  second  person,  or  impersonally.  Thus  in  reporting 
a  chemical  experiment,  the  form  may  be: 

"  I  take  so-and-so,  and  add.  .  .  ." 

"Take  so-and-so,  and  add.  ..." 

"When  so-and-so  is  added  to.  .  .  ."  Recipes  and  instruc- 
tions are  expressed  in  the  imperative  form;  manufacturing 
processes  are  necessarily  treated  impersonally;  with  other 
subjects  the  method  varies. 

The  fundamental  thing  in  dealing  with  these  methods  of 
exposition  is  to  be  sure  that  the  qualities  that  you  are  pre- 
senting are  actually  common  to  the  class,  and  not  peculiar  to 
the  individual. 

ASSIGNMENT 

1.  Among  the  following,  name  the  subjects  that  would  be  treated 
by  generalized  narration  or  description  and  alter  the  others  so  that 
they  could  be  treated  thus:  My  First  Cherry  Pie;  How  to  Make 
Chocolate  Cake;  The  Manufacture  of  Chlorine;  The  Busy  Man; 
How  Harold  Recites;  Keeping  Chickens;  How  I  Made  Chickens 
Pay;  How  to  Make  Chickens  Pay;  Learning  to  Swim;  How  the 
Monotype  Works;  Glass-blowing;  My  Visit  to  the  Glassworks;  How 
Molly  Voted;  How  Molly  Votes;  Molly  at  the  Polls;  How  I  Learned 
to  Drive  a  Car;  Learning  to  Drive  a  Car. 

2.  Bring  to  class  jsix  subjects  for  generalized  narration  and  six 
for  generalized  description,  of  a  scientific  or  practical  type;  and 
with  each  an  outline  for  its  treatment.    Discuss  and  improve  these 
outlines  in  class. 

3.  Write  about  300  words  on  one  of  the  following: 

(1)  How  I  Write  Letters;  or  How  I  Read  a  Novel;  or  How  I 
Work  in  the  Library. 


208  THE  WRITING  OF  ENGLISH 

(2)  Going  to  the  Dressmaker. 

(3)  How  to  Put  a  Tire  on  an  Automobile. 

(4)  Some  process  of  manufacture  with  which  you  are  familiar. 


7.  CAUSE  AND  EFFECT 

If  you  will  look  up  in  the  dictionary  the  noun  change,  you 
will  find  as  the  principal  definition  something  like  this:  "Act 
or  fact  of  changing,  as  in  conditions  or  circumstances."  This 
is  merely  an  amplification  of  change  =  change.  Now  look  up 
the  verb  change  to  see  if  it  throws  light  on  the  idea.  You  will 
read  something  like  this :  "To  alter  by  substituting  something 
for,  or  by  giving  up  for  something  else;  put  or  take  another 
or  others  in  place  of."  Do  you  know  now  the  meaning  of 
change?  Has  definition  helped?  Can  you  divide  change? 
You  can  illustrate  it  by  saying:  "This  leaf  was  green  and  now 
is  yellow";  or:  "This  house  was  solid  and  is  now  a  ruin." 
Between  the  former  and  the  present  condition  lies  change. 
But  do  you  know  much  more  than  you  did  before  about  the 
nature  of  change  itself? 

Look  up  in  the  dictionary  various  other  words  that  rep- 
resent the  great  forces  and  laws  of  Nature — motion,  electric- 
ity, life,  wind,  heat,  energy,  magnetism,  gravity,  light,  etc. 
How  much  explanation  do  you  get  of  the  nature  of  these 
forces?  In  our  present  state  of  knowledge  we  cannot  under- 
stand them  or  explain  them  at  all;  we  can  only  give  examples 
of  their  manifestations,  and  tell  the  conditions  under  which 
they  seem  invariably  to  appear,  and  the  effects  that  they  seem 
invariably  to  produce  upon  the  physical  matter  associated 
with  them;  that  is,  we  explain  them — so  far  as  we  do  explain 
at  all — in  terms  of  cause  and  effect. 

This  method  of  exposition  is  used  constantly  in  all  the 
sciences,  social  as  well  as  experimental;  and  is  similar  to 
the  explanation  of  a  thing  through  its  physical  manifestations, 
except  that  in  this  case  the  physical  manifestations  appear 


EXPOSITION  209 

not  in  the  thing  that  we  are  trying  to  explain  but  in  other 
things  associated  with  it. 

The  method  which  is  necessary  in  dealing  with  the  un- 
known forces  that  control  the  universe  may  be  used  of  any 
idea  in  which  cause  and  effect  is  under  consideration. 

The  analysis  of  a  situation  in  terms  of  cause  and  effect 
may  proceed  in  one  of  three  ways.  We  may  ask  ourselves 
(1)  Why  is  it  as  it  is?  The  answer  to  this  question  will  be  a 
group  of  causes.  We  may  ask  ourselves  (2)  What  came  of 
it?  The  answer  to  this  question  will  be  a  group  of  effects. 
Finally,  we  may  ask  ourselves  (3)  What  is  its  place  in  the 
chain  of  circumstances?  To  see  this  we  may  answer:  It  came 
into  existence  through  A,  B,  C,  etc.  (causes),  and  it  will  help 
to  bring  into  existence  A',  B',  C',  etc.  (effects) ;  it  is  an  effect 
of  A,  B,  C,  and  a  cause  of  A',  B',  C',  etc.  Or  we  may  say: 
It  is  a  complexity  in  which  are  discernible  many  strands  of 
cause-and-effect,  as  A>A',  B>B',  OC',  etc. 

Suppose  you  are  asked  to  write  a  paper  on:  Why  are 
Americans  snobbish?  The  statement  of  the  title  shows  at 
once  that  you  are  given  an  effect  and  asked  to  explain  its 
causes.  Your  problem,  then,  is  simple;  you  have  only  to  an- 
swer the  question  why.  You  will  think  at  once  of  several 
statements  beginning  with  because,  that  will  furnish  the  main 
outlines  of  your  paper: 

I.  Because  there  is  great  inequality  of  wealth. 

II.  Because  there  is  great  diversity  of  race  and  social 
position. 

III.  Because  only  five  per  cent  of  the  people  go  to  high 
school  and  only  one  per  cent  to  college. 

IV.  Because   social   standards   are   so   uncertain   and   so 
variable  that  snobbery  becomes  almost  necessary  in  self- 
defense. 

Upon  these  and  similar  reasons  you  can  build  up  a  paper. 
Your  only  concern  will  be  to  have  your  reasons  of  approx- 
imately the  same  degree  of  importance,  and  to  arrange  them 


210  THE  WRITING  OF  ENGLISH 

in  the  order  of  increasing  importance,  or  of  increasing  in- 
terest. 

If  it  should  happen  that  you  would  deny  the  assumption  of 
the  subject,  then  you  can  only  re-state  your  subject  to 
accord  with  your  own  belief,  and  proceed  to  analysis  of  the 
new  subject.  In  this  case,  your  subject  might  be:  Why  Are 
Americans  Democratic? 

Suppose  your  subject  is  stated :  How  Does  Sudden  Wealth 
Affect  People?  You  see  at  once  that  you  are  asked  to  deal 
with  a  cause,  and  to  evolve  its  effects.  You  will  begin  by 
remembering  the  effects  caused  by  sudden  wealth  in  the 
families  of  Smith,  Brown,  and  Robinson;  and  you  will  soon 
have  the  first  stages  of  an  outline: 

I.  It  brings  out  bad  traits  of  character. 

II.  It  brings  out  bad  taste. 

III.  It  produces  unhappiness. 

Each  of  these,  of  course,  must  be  analyzed  further.  Wealth 
brings  out  weaknesses  of  character,  because  .  .  .  ;  brings 
out  bad  taste,  because  .  .  .  ;  produces  unhappiness,  be- 
cause .... 

But  suppose  you  are  asked  to  write  on:  The  Effects  of  the 
Use  of  Aeroplanes  on  the  Conduct  of  the  War.  You  will  see 
that  the  Use  of  Aeroplanes  is  regarded  as  the  cause  of  certain 
effects.  As  aeroplanes  are  used  in  different  ways  and  for 
different  purposes,  your  cause  is  complex  and  must  be 
analyzed  into  the  various  uses  made  of  aeroplanes,  each  of 
which  will  have  its  particular  effect  or  effects.  The  outline 
of  your  paper,  then,  will  involve  a  series  of  causes  and 
effects: 

I.  As  aeroplanes  can  view  the  whole  countryside,  the  dis- 
position of  troops  must  be  altered: 

1.  Deep,  permanent  trenches  must  be  abandoned. 

2.  Camouflage  must  be  used. 

II.  As  aeroplanes  can  carry  enough  ammunition  to  attack, 
anti-aircraft  defenses  must  be  employed. 


EXPOSITION  211 

III.  As   aeroplanes   are   now  standardized   and   used   in 
squadrons,  organized  defenses  must  be  planned. 
In  this  way  your  paper  conforms  to  the  type  earlier  described 
asA>A';B>B';OC',  etc. 

Suppose  that  your  subject  is :  The  Influence  of  Journalism 
on  the  Modern  Short  Story.  Here  you  have  Journalism  as 
the  comprehensive  cause  of  a  group  of  effects  which  must 
be  analyzed  before  you  can  proceed  to  your  outline.  So  you 
begin  with  the  effects: 

I.  The  short  story  has  become  shorter  because  the  news- 
paper has  accustomed  people  to  scrappy  reading. 

II.  The  narrative-descriptive  method  has  been  replaced 
by  the  dramatic  because  the  newspaper  has  developed  the 
habit  of  quick  shift  of  attention,  and  this  is  best  met  by 
dramatic  presentation. 

III.  The  short  story  is  expressed  in  the  idiom  and  slang  of 
the  moment  because  newspapers  crowd  out  other  reading 
and  make  other  language  unfamiliar. 

This  partial  development  shows  the  method  of  approach  by 
beginning  with  each  effect  and  relating  it  at  once  to  its 
cause. 

Finally,  we  may  analyze  a  subject  so  as  to  look  backward 
to  its  causes  and  forward  to  its  effects.  Suppose  that  you  are 
asked  to  write  on:  Apartment  Life.  Immediately  you  would 
ask  yourself  two  questions : 

Why  do  people  live  in  apartments? 

What  effect  does  this  life  have  on  them? 
They  live  in  apartments  because  .  .  .  ;  and  the  life  has 
such-and-such  .  .  .  effects  on  them.      Fill  out  the  outline 
according  to  the  following  plan: 

I.  People  live  in  apartments  because 
1. 
2. 
3.  (Use  as  many  subheads  as  you  need.) 


212  THE  WRITING  OF  ENGLISH 

II.  The  effects  of  apartment  life  upon  them  are 
1. 
2. 

3.  (Express  your  subheads  in  sentence  form,  and  use 
as  many  subheads  as  you  can  think  of  effects.) 

In  this  case  you  had  a  group  of  causes  followed  by  a  group 
of  effects;  the  reversal  of  the  order  for  purposes  of  climax  or 
for  any  other  reason  would  not  affect  the  fundamental  type 
of  arrangement.  In  the  next  case,  you  will  have  a  series  of 
strands  of  thought  each  consisting  of  a  single  cause  and  effect : 
The  Advantages  and  Disadvantages  of  the  Telephone: 

I.  The  Telephone  is  an  advantage  because  it  saves  much 
time;  it  is  a  disadvantage  because  it  distracts  the  attention 
from  the  work  in  hand. 

II.  It  is  an  advantage  because  it  saves  much  energy;  it  is 
a  disadvantage  because  it  avoids  the  necessity  of  exercise. 

III.  It  is  an  advantage  because  it  enables  one  to  make  a 
suddenly-needed  purchase  without  delay;  it  is  a  disadvantage 
because  it  leaves  one  at  the  mercy  of  the  tradespeople. 

It  is  of  course  possible  to  group  all  the  advantages  together, 
and  then  all  the  disadvantages;  but  even  so,  what  we  have  is  a 
group  of  strands,  each  consisting  of  one  cause  and  one  effect. 

ASSIGNMENT 

1.  Finish  all  the  outlines  suggested  in  this  section.     Wherever 
you  can,  group  your  heads  and  subheads  in  more  than  one  way, 
and  decide  which  way  is  most  effective. 

2.  Discuss  from  notes  made  beforehand  the  nature  and  best 
methods  of  treating  the  following  subjects: 

(1)  The  Effects  of  the  Automobile  on  Character 

(2)  The  Effects  of  an  Open  Fire  on  Character 

(3)  Why  Food  Prices  Should  be  Regulated  by  Government  in 

War 

(4)  The  Place  of  the  Kindergarten  in  the  School  System 

(5)  The  Place  of  Machinery  in  Civilization 

(6)  The  Influence  of  Shakespeare  on  the  Stage  To-day 

(7)  Why  Musical  Comedy  Succeeds 


EXPOSITION  213 

(8)  The  Influence  of  Moving  Pictures  on  the  Regular  Drama 

(9)  The  Relation  of  H.  G.  Wells  to  his  Times 
(10)  Free  Verse 

3.  After  the  best  ways  of  outlining  all  these  subjects  have  been 
discussed,  choose  the  subject  which  appeals  to  you  most  strongly 
and  write  a  paper  of  about  500  words  on  it,  developing  it  entirely 
by  cause  and  effect.  Be  sure  that  your  outline  is  absolutely  satis- 
factory before  you  begin.  If  necessary,  have  the  outline  passed 
upon  by  a  competent  critic,  in  class  or  out  of  class. 

8.  CHARACTER  DRAWING 

Character  drawing  is  expository  in  its  purpose;  but  its 
methods  are  usually  those  of  narration  and  description. 

The  only  character  that  we  know  directly  is  our  own.  In 
regard  to  all  other  persons  we  reason  from  outward  signs — 
personal  appearance,  expression,  manner,  gesture,  dress, 
environment,  actions — particular  or  habitual — speech,  voice, 
and -the  effect  produced  upon  other  persons,  which  mani- 
fests itself  in  speech  and  behavior  to  and  in  regard  to 
them.  We  can  never  be  sure  that  we  are  entirely  right  as  to 
a  character;  and  the  probability  is  that  we  are  more  often 
mistaken  than  not  in  matters  of  detail.  But  the  more  we 
practice  observation  of  the  ways  in  which  traits  of  character 
manifest  themselves  in  ourselves,  and  the  more  we  compare 
similar  manifestations  as  they  appear  in  other  people,  the 
nearer  shall  we  come  to  a  firm  basis  for  our  judgments. 

In  studying  the  character  of  a  real  person,  or  of  a  person 
in  a  story  or  play,  we  reason  and  draw  conclusions  from  out- 
ward signs;  but  in  presenting  a  character  we  assume  that 
the  results  of  our  reasoning  process  are  correct,  and  our 
methods  are  expository. 

Now  we  may  interpret  a  character  by  presenting  directly 
the  sum  of  our  observations  and  reasoning,  thus: 

He  is  a  slow,  honest,  persistent  sort  of  man. 
This  is  bare,  direct  exposition  of  qualities,  useful  in  practical 


214  THE  WRITING  OF  ENGLISH 

life,  but  of  little  value  in  writing  unless  it  is  combined  with 
other  methods. 

The  simplest  combination  is  to  add  exemplification.  Thus 
you  may  use  narration  and  description  together,  with  per- 
haps quotation  also,  in  three  anecdotes  telling  how  your 
subject  spent  five  minutes  brushing  his  hat;  how  he  once 
went  out  of  his  way  to  rectify  a  mistake  in  change  in  his  favor; 
and  how  he  trained  a  refractory  horse. 

In  these  anecdotes,  you  may  combine  the  direct  method 
with  the  indirect  by  mentioning  the  qualities  that  the  stories 
illustrate;  or  you  may  keep  the  method  wholly  indirect  by 
letting  your  reader  infer  the  qualities  from  the  illustrations. 
Unless  a  very  subtle  characterization  is  to  be  made,  the  in- 
direct method  is  usually  preferable,  because  the  passage  as 
then  consisting  entirely  of  narration  and  description  can  be 
made  more  vivid  and  more  dynamic  than  if  explanatory 
comments  are  inserted  at  intervals. 

When  the  purely  indirect  method  is  used,  it  is  nothing 
more  than  an  application  of  the  methods  of  narration  and 
description  to  the  details  associated  with  a  person,  a  group 
of  persons — as  a  family,  a  nation,  a  race,  etc.;  a  place,  or 
even  an  individual  object  associated  with  a  place — that  is, 
a  city,  or  a  house  in  that  city;  a  house,  or  a  room  in  that 
house;  a  landscape,  or  a  particular  animal,  or  stream,  or  tree; 
and  to  the  representations  of  all  these  things  in  art.  The 
attempt  is  sometimes  made  also  to  interpret  music;  but  as 
yet  we  have  not  developed  language  to  such  a  point 
that  it  will  achieve  this.  All  that  we  succeed  in  doing 
is  to  describe  what  we  seem  to  see  when  we  are  listening 
to  a  piece  of  music.  This  is  not  in  any  proper  sense 
interpretation. 

The  methods  of  narration  and  description  are  found  in 
combination,  exactly  as  when  no  expository  purpose  underlies 
their  use.  When  they  are  used  in  developing  exposition,  the 
two  points  to  bear  in  mind  are : 


EXPOSITION  215 

1.  The  great  range  and  variety  of  the  outward  signs  of 
character 

2.  The  degrees  of  indirectness  with  which  character  can 
be  explained 

In  the  following,  Sadie  is  characterized  by  her  manner  in 
waiting  on  customers,  by  her  ideals  of  pleasure,  and  by  her 
language  in  voicing  them: 

One  afternoon  at  six,  when  Dulcie  was  sticking  her  hatpin  within 
an  eighth  of  an  inch  of  her  medulla  oblongata,  she  said  to  her  chum, 
Sadie — the  girl  that  waits  on  you  with  her  left  side: 

"Say,  Sade,  I  made  a  date  for  dinner  this  evening  with  Piggy." 
"You  never  did!"  exclaimed  Sadie  admiringly.  "Well,  ain't 
you  the  lucky  one?  Piggy's  an  awful  swell;  and  he  always  takes  a 
girl  to  swell  places.  He  took  Blanche  up  to  the  Hoffman  House 
one  evening,  where  they  have  swell  music  and  you  see  a  lot  of 
swells.  You'll  have  a  swell  time,  Dulcie." — 0.  Henry. 

In  the  next  quotation  Piggy  is  characterized  by  direct 
methods,  including  a  metaphor  and  a  pun;  by  his  habits,  his 
clothes,  and  his  effect  upon  certain  other  people,  who  are 
in  turn  characterized  by  their  occupation  as  the  lowest  of 
the  low: 

Piggy  needs  but  a  word.  When  the  girls  named  him,  an  unde- 
serving stigma  was  cast  upon  the  noble  family  of  swine.  The 
words-of- three-letters  lesson  in  the  old  blue  spelling  book  begins 
with  Piggy's  biography.  He  was  fat;  he  had  the  soul  of  a  rat,  the 
habits  of  a  bat,  the  magnanimity  of  a  cat.  .  .  .  He  wore  expensive 
clothes,  and  was  a  connoisseur  in  starvation.  He  could  look  at  a 
shop-girl  and  tell  you  to  an  hour  how  long  it  had  been  since  she 
had  eaten  anything  more  nourishing  than  marshmallows  and  tea. 
He  hung  about  the  shopping  districts,  and  prowled  around  in  de- 
partment stores  with  his  invitations  to  dinner.  Men  who  escort 
dogs  upon  the  streets  at  the  end  of  a  string  look  down  upon  him. 
He  is  a  type;  I  can  dwell  upon  him  no  longer:  my  pen  is  not  the 
kind  intended  for  him.  I  am  no  carpenter. — 0.  Henry. 

In  the  next  quotation  the  characterization  of  a  group  is 
done  by  a  description  of  photographs : 


216  THE  WRITING  OF  ENGLISH 

...  he  drew  the  family  photographs  from  under  his  pillow, 
and  handed  them  over:  the  little  witch-grandmother,  with  a  face 
like  a  withered  walnut,  the  father,  a  fine  broken-looking  old  boy 
with  a  Roman  nose  and  a  weak  chin,  the  mother  in  crape,  simple, 
serious  and  provincial,  the  little  sister  ditto,  and  Alain,  the  young 
brother  ...  an  over-grown  thread-paper  boy  with  too  much 
forehead  and  eyes,  and  not  a  muscle  in  bis  body.  A  charming- 
looking  family,  distinguished  and  amiable;  but  all,  except  the 
grandmother,  rather  usual.  The  kind  of  people  who  come  in  sets. 

—Edith  Wharton. 

In  the  next,  a  woman  is  characterized  partly  by  her  en- 
vironment, but  chiefly  by  her  effect  upon  the  speaker: 

"  She  sat  by  the  fire  in  a  bare  panelled  bedroom,  bolt  upright  in 
an  armchair  with  ears,  a  knitting-table  at  her  elbow  with  a  shaded 
candle  on  it.  She  was  even  more  withered  and  ancient  than  she 
looked  in  her  photograph,  and  I  judge  she's  never  been  pretty; 
but  she  somehow  made  me  feel  as  if  I'd  got  through  with  prettiness. 
I  don't  know  exactly  what  she  reminded  me  of:  a  dried  bouquet,  or 
something  rich  and  clovy  that  had  turned  brittle  through  long 
keeping  in  a  sandal-wood  box.  I  suppose  her  sandal-wood  box  had 
been  Good  Society.  Well,  I  had  a  rare  evening  with  her." 

—Edith  Wharton. 

In  the  next,  a  man  is  characterized  by  his  actions  and  his 
effect  upon  other  people,  as  described  by  his  widow: 

"You  know  how  Tobin  would  let  his  fist  right  out  at  anybody 
that  undertook  to  sass  him.  Town-meetin'  days,  if  he  got  disap- 
pointed about  the  way  things  went,  he'd  lay  'em  out  in  win'rows; 
and  ef  he  hadn't  been  a  church  member  he'd  been  a  real  fightin' 
character.  I  was  always  'fraid  to  have  him  roused,  for  all  he  was 
so  willin'  and  meechin'  to  home,  and  set  round  clever  as  anybody. 
My  Susan  Ellen  used  to  boss  him  same's  the  kitten,  when  she  was 
four  year  old." — Sarah  Orne  Jewett. 

In  the  next,  a  young  man  is  characterized  by  the  actions 
of  other  people,  who,  incidentally,  characterize  themselves  at 
the  same  time: 

He  had  a  bad  hour  of  it;  but  he  held  his  own,  keeping  silent  while 
they  screamed,  and  stiffening  as  they  began  to  wobble  from  ex- 
haustion. Finally  he  took  his  mother  apart,  and  tried  to  reason 


EXPOSITION  217 

with  her.  His  arguments  were  not  much  use,  but  his  resolution 
impressed  her,  and  he  saw  it.  As  for  his  father,  nobody  was  afraid 
of  Monsieur  de  R6champ.  When  he  said:  "Never — never  while  I 
live,  and  there  is  a  roof  on  Re*champ,"  they  all  knew  he  had  col- 
lapsed inside.  But  the  grandmother  was  terrible.  She  was  terrible 
because  she  was  so  old,  and  so  clever  at  taking  advantage  of  it. 
She  could  bring  on  a  valvular  heart-attack  by  just  sitting  still  and 
holding  her  breath,  as  Jean  and  his  mother  had  long  since  found 
out;  and  she  always  treated  them  to  one  when  things  weren't  going 
as  she  liked.— Edith  Wharton. 

In  the  next,  three  women  are  characterized  by  the  way  they 
looked  and  acted  upon  hearing  something  that  shocked  them : 

A  shudder  ran  around  the  room.  Mrs.  Leveret  coughed  so  that 
the  parlor-maid,  who  was  handing  the  cigarettes,  should  not  hear; 
Miss  Van  Vluyck's  face  took  on  a  nauseated  expression,  and  Mrs. 
Plinth  looked  as  if  she  were  passing  some  one  she  did  not  care  to 
bow  to. — Edith  Wharton. 

The  interpretation  of  the  spirit  of  a  place  or  of  a  work  of 
art  is  often  perhaps  more  valuable  as  a  revelation  of  the 
writer's  personality  than  as  a  final  explanation  of  the  thing 
itself.  For  instance,  Mr.  H.  G.  Wells  interprets  the  statue 
of  Liberty  in  New  York  harbor  thus : 

One  gets  a  measure  of  the  quality  of  this  force  of  mechanical,  of 
inhuman,  growth  as  one  marks  the  great  statue  of  Liberty  on  our 
larboard,  which  is  meant  to  dominate  the  scene.  It  gets  to  three 
hundred  feet  about,  by  standing  on  a  pedestal  of  a  hundred  and 
fifty;  and  the  uplifted  torch,  seen  against  the  sky,  suggests  an  arm 
straining  upward,  straining  in  hopeless  competition  with  the  fierce 
commercial  altitudes  ahead.  Poor  liberating  lady  of  the  American 
ideal.  One  passes  her  and  forgets. 

Whatever  we  think  of  the  art  of  this  statue,  it  is  not  likely 
that  many  of  us  have  consciously  interpreted  its  smallness 
as  seen  over  against  the  sky-scrapers  behind  it,  in  this  way. 

In  writing  interpretations  of  this  kind,  it  is  important  not 
to  let  personality  run  away  with  fact;  in  other  words,  to  see 
that  there  is  a  real  foundation  in  the  facts  themselves 
to  warrant  the  meaning  based  upon  them.  In  the  following 


218  THE  WRITING  OF  ENGLISH 

exposition  of  spring,  you  will  see  that  the  author  merely 
hints  at  the  emotions  communicated  by  certain  lights,  scents, 
and  sounds;  he  keeps  very  close  to  his  observations  of  Nature: 

A  soft  sound  of  water  moving  among  thousands  of  grass-blades — 
to  the  hearing  it  is  as  the  sweetness  of  spring  air  to  the  scent.  It  is 
so  faint  and  so  diffused  that  the  exact  spot  whence  it  issues  cannot 
be  discerned,  yet  it  is  distinct,  and  my  footsteps  are  slower  as  I 
listen.  Yonder,  in  the  corners  of  the  mead,  the  atmosphere  is  full 
of  some  ethereal  vapor.  The  sunshine  stays  in  the  air  there,  as  if 
the  green  hedges  held  the  wind  from  brushing  it  away.  Low  and 
plaintive  come  the  notes  of  a  lapwing;  the  same  notes,  but  tender 
with  love. — Richard  Jefferies. 

In  the  exposition  of  a  work  of  art  it  is  highly  important 
to  base  your  impression  of  what  the  artist  is  trying  to  say 
upon  close  observation  of  what  he  has  actually  put  into 
his  painting  or  statue.  He  may  try  to  tell  a  story,  or  to  ex- 
press character,  or  the  spirit  of  a  place,  or  the  physical  beauty 
of  line,  color,  atmosphere,  or  a  spiritual  beauty  scarcely 
translatable  into  words.  Whatever  it  is,  there  is  only  one 
way  of  understanding  it,  and  that  is  through  its  visible  signs. 
As  a  very  simple  exercise  in  this  kind  of  interpretation,  let  us 
consider  the  meaning  from  outward  signs  of  the  picture  by 
Holbein  on  the  opposite  page. 

To  study  it,  regard  it  not  as  a  work  of  art,  but  as  if  it  were 
a  reflection  in  a  looking-glass;  and  answer  the  following  ques- 
tions : 

1.  What  information  does  the  picture  give  about  the  subject? 
the  artist?  the  date? 

2.  Is  the  subject  of  the  portrait  rich  or  poor?  has  he  ever  done 
manual  work?  does  he  buy  and  sell?    Note  the  evidence. 

3.  Of  what  materials  are  his  clothes  made?    How  many  rings 
has  he?    What  do  you  observe  about  them? 

4.  Where  is  he  sitting?    How  is  the  room  constructed?    What 
articles  of  furniture  and  other  equipment  do  you  see? 

5.  What  information  about  letters  and  letter-writing  does  the 
picture  give?    Be  sure  that  you  note  every  detail. 

6.  What  can  you  tell  about  the  books? 


GEORGE  GISZE 
Portrait  bv  Holbein 


EXPOSITION  219 

7.  What  do  you  observe  about  the  coins? 

8.  What  does  the  table  cover  suggest  about  European  trade  at 
the  time  the  picture  was  painted? 

9.  What  are  the  flowers  in  the  vase? 

10.  Do  you  see  anything  else  in  the  picture  that  calls  for  com- 
ment? 

Now  sum  up  your  notes  under  two  heads: 

1.  The  details  that  suggest  the  life  and  character  of  the 
subject 

2.  The  details  that  give  information  as  to  the  artist's 
methods  and  skill 

With  these  notes  you  can  explain  both  the  character  of  the 
man  portrayed  and  the  skill  with  which  the  artist  has  ev- 
idently portrayed  him.  The  two  subjects  are  quite  distinct. 
This  method  of  exposition  can  be  applied  to  any  work  of 
art;  but  the  more  subtle  the  subject  and  the  more  distinctive 
the  technique,  the  more  difficult  it  is  to  keep  your  exposition 
grounded  upon  material  facts — the  more  difficult  and  the 
more  important.  The  sane  and  luminous  exposition  of  works 
of  art  is  one  of  the  most  difficult  forms  of  writing.  Here  we 
have  barely  touched  upon  the  most  elementary  aspect  of  it. 

ASSIGNMENT 

1.  Sum  up  in  direct  statements  your  understanding  of  the 
character  interpreted  in  the  following  passages;  and  note  all  the 
methods  of  exposition  used.  Then  try  to  find  other  examples  of 
these  same  methods  from  stories  mentioned  on  pp.  157,  316  of 
this  book: 

"Dulcie  hurried  homeward.  Her  eyes  were  shining,  and  her 
cheeks  showed  the  delicate  pink  of  life's — real  life's — approaching 
dawn.  It  was  Friday;  and  she  had  fifty  cents  left  of  her  last  week's 


"Dulcie  stopped  in  a  store  where  goods  were  cheap  and  bought 
an  imitation  lace  collar  with  her  fifty  cents.  That  money  was  to 
have  been  spent  otherwise — fifteen  cents  for  supper,  ten  cents 
for  breakfast,  ten  cents  for  lunch.  Another  dime  was  to  be  added 
to  her  small  store  of  savings;  and  five  cents  was  to  be  squandered 
for  licorice  drops — the  kind  that  make  your  cheek  look  like  the 


220  THE  WRITING  OF  ENGLISH 

toothache,  and  last  as  long.  The  licorice  was  an  extravagance — 
almost  a  carouse — but  what  is  life  without  pleasures? 

"Dulcie  had  a  furnished  room.  There  is  this  difference  between 
a  furnished  room  and  a  boarding-house.  In  a  furnished  room,  other 
people  do  not  know  it  when  you  go  hungry. 

"On  the  dresser  .were  her  treasures — a  gilt  china  vase  presented 
to  her  by  Sadie,  a  calendar  issued  by  pickle  works,  a  book  on  the 
divination  of  dreams,  some  rice  powder  in  a  glass  dish,  and  a  cluster 
of  artificial  cherries  tied  with  a  pink  ribbon. 

"Against  the  wrinkly  mirror  stood  pictures  of  General  Kitchener, 
William  Muldoon,  the  Duchess  of  Marlborough,  and  Benvenuto 
Cellini.  Against  one  wall  was  a  plaster  of  Paris  plaque  of  an  O'Cal- 
lahan  in  a  Roman  helmet.  Near  it  was  a  violent  oleograph  of  a 
lemon-colored  child  assaulting  an  inflammatory  butterfly.  .  .  . 

"At  ten  minutes  to  seven  Dulcie  was  ready.  She  looked  at  her- 
self in  the  wrinkly  mirror.  The  reflection  was  satisfactory.  The 
dark  blue  dress,  fitting  without  a  wrinkle,  the  hat  with  its  jaunty 
black  feather,  the  but-slightly-soiled  gloves — all  representing  self- 
denial,  even  of  food  itself — were  vastly  becoming. 

"Dulcie  turned  to  the  dresser  to  get  her  handkerchief;  and  then 
she  stopped  still,  and  bit  her  underlip  hard.  While  looking  in  her 
mirror  she  had  seen  fairyland  and  herself  a  princess,  just  awakening 
from  a  long  slumber.  She  had  forgotten  one  that  was  watching 
her  with  sad,  beautiful,  stern  eyes — the  only  one  there  was  to  ap- 
prove or  condemn  what  she  did.  Straight  and  slender  and  tall, 
with  a  look  of  reproach  on  his  handsome,  melancholy  face,  General 
Kitchener  fixed  his  wonderful  eyes  on  her  out  of  his  gilt  photograph 
frame  on  the  dresser. 

"Dulcie  turned  like  an  automatic  doll  to  the  landlady. 

"'Tell  him  I  can't  go,'  she  said  dully.  'Tell  him  I'm  sick,  or 
something.  Tell  him  I'm  not  going  out.' 

"After  the  door  was  closed  and  locked,  Dulcie  fell  upon  her  bed, 
crushing  her  black  tip,  and  cried  for  ten  minutes.  General  Kit- 
chener was  her  only  friend.  He  was  Dulcie's  ideal  of  a  gallant 
knight.  He  looked  as  if  he  might  have  a  secret  sorrow,  and  his 
wonderful  moustache  was  a  dream,  and  she  was  a  little  afraid  of 
that  stern  yet  tender  look  in  his  eyes.  She  used  to  have  little  fancies 
that  he  would  call  at  the  house  sometime,  and  ask  for  her,  with  his 
sword  clanking  against  his  high  boots.  Once,  when  a  boy  was  rat- 
tling a  piece  of  chain  against  a  lamp-post,  she  had  opened  the  window 
and  looked  out.  But  there  was  no  use.  She  knew  that  General 
Kitchener  was  away  over  in  Japan,  leading  his  army  against  the 
savage  Turks;  and  he  would  never  step  out  of  his  gilt  frame  for  her. 
Yet  one  look  from  him  had  vanquished  Piggy  for  that  night.  Yes, 
for  that  night. 

"  When  her  cry  was  over  Dulcie  got  up  and  took  off  her  best  dress, 
and  put  on  her  old  blue  kimono.  She  wanted  no  dinner.  She  sang 


EXPOSITION  221 

two  verses  of  'Sammy.'  Then  she  became  intensely  interested 
in  a  little  bad  speck  on  the  side  of  her  nose.  And  after  that  was 
attended  to,  she  drew  up  a  chair  to  the  rickety  table,  and  told  her 
fortune  with  an  old  deck  of  cards. 

"'The  horrid,  impudent  thing,'"  she  said  aloud.  'And  I  never 
gave  him  a  word  or  a  look  to  make  him  think  it.' 

"At  nine  o'clock  Dulcie  took  a  tin  box  of  crackers  and  a  little  pot 
of  raspberry  jam  out  of  her  trunk,  and  had  a  feast.  She  offered 
General  Kitchener  some  jam  on  a  cracker;  but  he  only  looked  at 
her  as  the  sphinx  would  have  looked  at  a  butterfly — if  there  are 
butterflies  in  the  desert. 

'"Don't  eat  it  if  you  don't  want  to,'  said  Dulcie.  'And  don't 
put  on  so  many  airs  and  scold  so  with  your  eyes.  I  wonder  if  you'd 
be  so  superior  and  snippy  if  you  had  to  live  on  six  dollars  a  week.'  " 

—0.  Henry. 

2.  Write  a  group  of  brief  character  studies  (about  100  words 
each),  on  the  basis  of  (1)  clothes;  (2)  shoes;  (3)  neckties;  (4)  hats; 
(5)  pictures  in  a  room;  (6)  books  owned;  (7)  an  automobile;  (8) 
hands;  (9)  voice;  (10)  some  habit. 

3.  Write  a  300-word  exposition  of  some  place — a  town,  a  house, 
a  bit  of  nature  very  familiar  to  you. 

4.  Write  in  100  words  each  expositions  of  (1)  the  Gisze  picture; 
(2)  Holbein's  art  in  it. 

5.  Repeat  the  exercise  with  some  picture  of  your  own  choosing. 


CHAPTER  XII 

ARGUMENT 

1.  EVIDENCE 

ARGUMENT  is  the  process  by  which  we  arrive  at  truth, 
and  persuade  others  to  believe  and  to  act  upon  it.  It  be- 
gins with  the  accumulation  and  testing  of  facts,  and  proceeds 
by  the  application  of  reason  to  these  facts  in  order  to  draw 
inferences  as  to  their  relationships  and  meaning.  Both  facts 
and  inferences  must  be  narrowly  scrutinized  at  every  step, 
as  a  single  error  of  fact  or  a  single  incorrect  inference  may 
shake  the  entire  argument. 

In  this  way  we  argue  to  convince  ourselves  and  others. 
When  we  further  add  an  appeal  to  the  emotions  of  men,  our 
process  is  extended  beyond  conviction  to  persuasion,  which 
has  special  methods  of  its  own. 

Every  argument  is  based  upon  an  assertion — in  technical 
language,  a  proposition — of  which  the  subject  and  the  pred- 
icate are  called  the  terms.  No  argument  can  be  based  upon 
a  single  term.  You  cannot  argue  "democracy";  you  can 
argue:  "Democracy  is  a  success";  or  "Democracy  is  a  fail- 
ure." 

We  use  argument  in  several  different  ways.  By  the 
methods  of  conviction  alone  we  endeavor  to  establish  truth: 
this  truth  may  be  a  matter  of  fact,  or  the  working  of  some 
law  or  principle  in  Nature  or  in  human  life  or  society.  By 
the  methods  of  conviction  and  persuasion  together  we  try 
to  make  other  people  believe  and  act  in  accordance  with  the 
results  reached  by  the  argument. 

As  argument  is  always  based  upon  a  proposition,  there  are 
222 


ARGUMENT  223 

always  two  sides  to  be  considered:  the  side  that  affirms  the 
truth  of  the  proposition,  and  the  side  that  denies  it.  Where 
all  the  facts  are  admittedly  on  one  side,  there  can  be  no 
argument;  where  they  are  evenly  balanced,  no  conclusion. 
In  most  arguments  the  conclusion  is  based  upon  a  prepon- 
derance of  the  evidence  on  one  side  or  the  other.  Truth  is 
discovered  by  gradual  approximations,  ranging  from  possibil- 
ity, through  varying  degrees  of  probability,  to  certainty. 
The  number  of  conclusions  which  are  now  regarded  as  cer- 
tain is  still  extremely  limited.  What  one  age  thinks  it  has 
proved,  the  next  disproves  altogether  or  in  part.  Usually, 
however,  there  is  a  residuum  of  truth  after  the  false  has  been 
removed,  and  this  forms  the  basis  for  a  new  line  of  argument. 

Before  you  can  argue  about  any  proposition,  you  must 
make  up  your  mind  whether  it  is  true  or  false.  To  do  this 
you  must  collect  and  test  the  evidence.  All  evidence  is  either 
direct,  or  as  it  is  sometimes  called,  testimonial — based  upon 
the  statements  of  witnesses;  or  indirect — derived  by  inference 
from  circumstances  or  environment.  In  both  kinds  of  ev- 
idence there  are  many  possibilities  of  error. 

Direct  evidence  is  obtained  from  the  observations  of  wit- 
nesses. But  suppose  the  witnesses  disagree?  Suppose  sev- 
eral people  say  that  they  saw  Smith  shoot  Jones;  and  several 
say  that  they  saw  Jones  shoot  himself  although  Smith  tried 
to  prevent  him.  How  can  you  get  the  facts?  There  are  four 
tests  that  can  be  applied  to  the  statements  of  these  wit- 
nesses by  which  the  relative  values  of  their  testimonies  will 
appear: 

1.  Is  this  witness  a  competent  observer? 

2.  Is  he  known  to  be  generally  truthful? 

3.  Is  his  judgment  unbiased  by  personal  feeling? 

4.  Is  his  testimony  for  or  against  his  own  interest? 

If,  for  instance,  one  of  the  witnesses  is  an  old  man  who  can 
scarcely  see,  his  testimony  is  almost  worthless;  if  another  is  a 
loafer  who  would  do  anything  for  the  price  of  a  drink,  his 


224  THE  WRITING  OF  ENGLISH 

testimony  is  seriously  impaired  by  that  fact;  if  a  third  is 
Jones's  friend  and  Smith's  enemy,  the  fact  will  have  to  be 
taken  into  account;  if  the  fourth,  who  is  Smith's  enemy  and 
has  vowed  to  get  even  with  him  for  an  old  grudge,  testifies 
that  he  saw  Jones  shoot  himself  while  Smith  was  trying  to  get 
the  revolver  from  him,  his  testimony  will  outweigh  that  of 
many  others,  because  he  is  testifying  against  his  will  and 
his  own  interests. 

So  it  is  that  the  most  rigid  scrutiny  of  testimony  must  be 
made  before  it  can  be  accepted  as  fact.  The  possibilities  of 
distortion  of  the  truth  through  error  of  observation,  through 
the  effect  of  emotion  or  prejudice,  and  through  motives  of 
self-interest,  are  even  with  the  utmost  care  scarcely  to  be 
eliminated. 

Indirect  evidence  is  subject  to  all  the  error  involved  in  the 
testimony  of  witnesses,  inasmuch  as  it  also  presents  facts 
subject  to  personal  interpretation;  and  it  involves  further 
errors  in  the  formation  of  hypotheses  to  fit  the  facts.  The 
danger  is  always  that  more  than  one  hypothesis  will  fit  the 
same  set  of  circumstances  almost  equally  well.  Many  an 
innocent  man  has  been  convicted  of  crime  on  the  basis  of  a 
combination  of  circumstances  which  time  showed  to  be  ex- 
plicable on  quite  another  hypothesis.  A  thumb  print  is 
enough  to  convict  a  murderer,  because  no  two  people  have 
thumbs  that  make  exactly  the  same  prints;  but  there  is  per- 
haps no  other  form  of  circumstantial  evidence  that  is  in 
itself  entirely  convincing.  As  a  rule,  the  value  of  circum- 
stantial evidence  is  cumulative:  a  single  detail  may  leave 
room  for  many  hypotheses;  but  every  detail  added  narrows 
the  number  of  hypotheses,  until  enough  details  may  be  found 
to  permit  only  one  hypothesis  to  fit  the  case.  If,  for  example, 
a  murderer  has  lost  a  button  from  his  coat  and  has  dropped 
a  gray  glove,  and  if  a  man  is  found  who  has  lost  such  a  button 
and  such  a  glove,  there  is  evidence  enough  for  arresting  him; 
yet  the  button  may  be  of  a  type  worn  by  many  men,  and  it  is 


ARGUMENT  225 

conceivable  that  two  men  might  have  lost  a  glove  of  the 
same  size  and  color  at  about  the  same  time  and  in  the  same 
town.  If,  however,  the  arrested  man  has  blood-stains  on 
his  clothes  and  articles  that  belonged  to  the  murdered  man 
in  his  possession,  there  will  be  little  doubt  of  his  guilt.  And 
yet,  his  story  of  a  cut  finger,  and  of  finding  or  buying  the 
victim's  jewelry,  however  improbable,  may  be  true.  The 
facts  will  be  against  him — the  more  so  if  he  is  a  bad  character 
and  had  an  obvious  motive  for  committing  the  crime;  but 
there  is  still  room  for  other  hypotheses,  and  until  all  these 
have  been  eliminated,  the  man  should  not  be  convicted. 

If  direct  and  indirect  evidence  agree,  the  proof  becomes 
very  strong;  if  they  contradict  each  other,  the  one  that  leaves 
most  residuum  of  fact  after  both  have  been  tested  by  every 
available  means,  will  outweigh  the  other;  but  the  conclusion 
will  none  the  less  be  weakened  by  their  contradiction,  and 
there  will  be  the  chance  that  fresh  evidence  of  either  kind 
might  turn  the  scale. 

ASSIGNMENT 

1.  Discuss  the  value  of  the  following  witnesses: 

(1)  A  discharged  employee  (a)  for,  and  (b)  against  the  company 
for  which  he  had  worked 

(2)  A  mother  in  regard  to  details  of  her  son's  injury  in  a  street 
accident;  a  surgeon  on  the  same  case;  a  policeman;  a  bystander 

(3)  A  child  of  eight  on  the  details  of  a  crime 

(4)  A  lunatic  (a)  incriminating  himself  in  a  charge  of  arson;  (b) 
against  the  superintendent,  claiming  mistreatment 

(5)  A  relative,  as  against  a  handwriting  expert,  in  a  case  of  forgery 

(6)  An  accomplice  in  a  crime 

(7)  A  naval   officer  against  an  inventor  who  has  devised  an 
instrument  for  detecting  submarines 

(8)  An  inventor  on  the  device  of  a  rival 

(9)  A  person  in  delirium 

(10)  A  wife  against  her  husband;  a  divorced  wife  against  her 
former  husband 

2.  Discuss  the  value  of  the  following  as  circumstantial  evidence: 


226  THE  WRITING  OF  ENGLISH 

(1)  an  article  of  clothing  found  on  the  spot;  (2)  footprints;  (3) 
fingerprints;  (4)  failure  to  produce  an  alibi;  (5)  the  behavior  of  an 
accused  person. 

3.  Invent,  or  find,  and  discuss  a  case  of  crime  in  which  circum- 
stantial evidence  seems  conclusive.     Then  try  to  show  that  it  is 
not. 

4.  Examine  the  testimony  of  various  witnesses  in  a  trial  reported 
recently  in  the  newspapers,  and  suggest  reason*  which  determine 
the  value  of  the  testimony  of  each. 

5.  Write  a  summary  of  the  evidence  on  each  side  in  some  trial 
that  has  recently  attracted  attention,  together  with  a  statement 
of  the  decision  reached.    State  whether  or  not  you  agree  with  this 
decision,  on  the  basis  of  the  evidence  offered;  if  you  do  not  agree, 
give  your  reasons  for  your  different  opinion. 

These  papers  should  be  discussed  in  class. 

6.  Imagine  yourself  lawyer  for  the  defense  in  the  following  case 
in  which  the  evidence  is  all  circumstantial.     The  man's  character 
is  excellent,  and  his  mother  is  convinced  of  his  innocence.    On  the 
night  of  the  murder,  he  had  been  out  shooting.    He  arrived  home 
late,  without  his  gun,  his  clothes  torn,  and  his  face  and  hands 
bleeding;  he  was  breathless  and  excited.    His  story  was  that  he  had 
lain  down  to  rest,  had  fallen  asleep,  and  when  he  awakened,  had 
missed  his  gun.     As  he  rushed  headlong  after  the  thief,  he  had 
stumbled  into  a  barbed  wire  fence  and  fallen;  the  wire  and  a  piece 
of  broken  crockery  on  the  rough  ground  had  torn  his  clothes  and 
injured  him.     The  murdered  man  was  found  not  far  away  in  an 
abandoned  brickyard  by  the  owner  of  the  brickyard  at  eleven 
o'clock  at  night.     He  had  been  shot  with  the  missing  gun,  which 
lay  near  him. 

Is  the  evidence  convincing?    How  should  you  proceed  to  test  it? 

2.  AUTHORITY 

If  the  determination  of  facts  in  regard  to  contemporary 
events  and  conditions  is  difficult  because  of  the  many  sorts 
of  error  that  creep  into  first-hand  evidence,  and  the  many 
hypotheses  that  fit  a  particular  set  of  observed  circumstances, 
much  more  difficult  is  it  to  get  at  the  truth  in  regard  to  events 
and  conditions  from  which  we  are  far  removed.  Here  the 
indirect  evidence,  in  proportion  as  it  is  fragmentary,  leaves 
more  room  for  wrong  hypotheses,  and  the  direct  evidence, 


ARGUMENT  227 

which  we  sum  up  in  the  term  authority,  is  more  often  second- 
hand or  even  thirdhand  than  the  testimony  of  one  in  a  posi- 
tion to  know  the  full  truth  and  unbiased  to  tell  the  exact 
truth.  Consequently,  we  must  use  all  the  methods  of  testing 
used  in  a  legal  process  to-day,  and  add  others  to  meet  the 
special  difficulties. 

To  get  an  idea  of  the  causes  of  error  and  the  need  of  critical 
methods  in  dealing  with  reports  of  remote  events,  let  us  first 
examine  a  very  familiar  legend. 

The  famous  story  of  William  Tell,  who  to  prove  his  marks- 
manship first  shot  an  apple  from  his  son's  head,  and  after- 
ward shot  Gessler,  the  oppressor  of  his  country,  has  been 
until  recent  times  generally  accepted.  There  are  memorial 
coins  and  charters  that  pretend  to  date  from  the  fourteenth 
century;  the  name  of  Tell  occurs  in  the  register  of  the  canton 
of  Uri;  the  place  where  the  shooting  test  was  held  is  still 
pointed  out,  and  a  chapel  on  Lake  Lucerne  is  said  to  have  been 
built  on  the  spot  where  Tell  landed  when  he  escaped  from  the 
tyrant.  If  all  this  evidence  bears  testing,  it  forms  a  fairly 
substantial  basis  for  believing  the  story. 

But  the  first  mention  of  Tell  occurs  in  the  White  Book, 
a  chronicle  written  one  hundred  and  fifty  years  after  the  sup- 
posed events.  This  long  silence  is  not  conclusive,  but  it  is 
significant.  Should  you  incline  to  believe  a  story  of  the 
Revolutionary  War  first  published  now?  Further,  examina- 
tion of  the  coins  and  charters  shows  that  they  are  forged; 
examination  of  the  Register  of  Uri  shows  that  the  name  Tell 
has  been  altered  from  Nail;  the  Austrians  never  were  op- 
pressors of  Uri;  there  never  was  an  Austrian  governor  named 
Gessler,  and  no  Gessler  was  ever  governor  of  a  Swiss  canton. 

On  the  other  hand,  a  very  similar  story  told  of  other  per- 
sons appears  in  the  twelfth  century  history  of  the  Dane,  Saxo 
Grammaticus,  which  was  then  popular  throughout  Europe. 
This  story,  it  seems,  was  first  incorporated  in  the  White  Book, 
and  then  evidence  was  manufactured  to  support  it. 


228  THE  WRITING  OF  ENGLISH 

On  examination,  then,  it  appears  that  there  is  no  good 
authority  for  the  truth  of  the  Tell  story,  that  the  only 
authorities  have  been  fabricated  out  of  a  well-known  source 
of  fiction. 

So  in  every  argument  to  establish  fact,  in  connection  with 
history,  biography,  and  the  historical  aspects  of  the  sciences, 
no  progress  can  be  made  until  the  documentary  evidence 
has  been  thoroughly  tested.  In  doing  this,  four  questions 
must  be  answered  satisfactorily: 

1.  Is  the  document  genuine? 

2.  Precisely  what  does  it  mean? 

3.  Did  the  writer  know  the  facts? 

4.  Did  he  tell  the  truth? 

If  a  document  is  self-contradictory,  or  if  it  conflicts  with 
other  documents  known  to  be  genuine,  or  if  its  evidence  runs 
counter  to  human  experience,  its  genuineness  is  open  to  ques- 
tion and  must  be  established  by  a  separate  analysis  and 
argument  before  it  can  be  used  as  authority.  If  its  authentic- 
ity cannot  for  lack  of  evidence  be  established,  it  must  be  re- 
jected, or  quoted  with  full  admission  of  its  doubtful  value: 
no  appreciable  weight  of  the  argument  must  be  allowed  to 
depend  upon  it. 

The  meaning  of  a  document  can  be  established  with  cer- 
tainty only  upon  the  basis  of  a  thorough  knowledge  of  the 
language  it  uses,  and  of  the  nature  and  relationships  of  the 
persons  or  things  of  which  it  treats. 

To  discover  whether  the  writer  was  in  a  position  to  know 
the  facts,  it  is  necessary  to  study  the  circumstances  of  his 
life  and  his  relationship  to  the  matter  about  which  he  writes. 
If  he  is  not  contemporary,  his  work  must  be  referred  to  its 
contemporary  sources,  and  these  must  undergo  the  testing. 
If  he  is  contemporary,  we  must  ask  whether  he  knew  the 
truth  at  firsthand,  or  had  access  to  those  who  did,  or  whether 
he  lived  far  from  the  things  that  he  relates,  and  writes  merely 
from  hearsay. 


ARGUMENT  229 

But  even  if  he  is  shown  to  have  had  every  opportunity  to 
know  the  facts,  it  does  not  follow  that  he  is  telling  the  truth. 
We  must  examine  his  work  until  we  know  whether  in  general 
he  is  truthful;  we  must  look  for  information  as  to  his  char- 
acter among  his  contemporaries;  we  must  consider  whether 
from  the  circumstances  of  his  life,  he  writes  with  a  bias. 
If  Cromwell  had  written  a  history  of  the  Civil  War  of 
1642  in  England,  he  would  have  presented  it  from  a  very 
different  angle  from  the  History  of  the  Great  Rebellion  by  the 
Earl  of  Clarendon,  who  was  a  Stuart  partisan.  Religious 
and  political  prejudices,  personal  relationships  and  tastes, 
affect  vitally  the  work  of  a  man  even  when  he  hon- 
estly aims  to  tell  the  truth.  It  is  said  that  influences  of 
this  nature  make  it  necessary  to  investigate  and  rewrite 
almost  the  whole  history  of  the  early  years  of  our  own 
government. 

All  such  tests  must  be  carried  out  with  extreme  care,  and 
minor  arguments  introduced  whenever  there  is  reason  to 
doubt  a  single  fact  used  to  support  the  major  argument. 
It  is  because  in  the  past  too  much  has  been  taken  for  granted 
that  we  continually  find  so-called  historical  facts  which  rest 
upon  no  more  secure  foundation  than  a  surmise.  Until  we 
have  learned  never  to  build  upon  anything  less  than  estab- 
lished fact,  we  shall  never  feel  secure  in  our  knowledge  of 
history.  Hypotheses  are  useful  as  long  as  they  are  clearly 
understood  to  be  hypotheses;  the  danger  is  that  in  time  they 
come  to  be  regarded  as  facts. 

In  addition  to  direct  testimony  as  to  matters  t>f  history, 
we  have  all  sorts  of  indirect  or  circumstantial  evidence,  the 
value  of  which  is  increasingly  recognized.  It  includes  not 
merely  such  things  as  coins,  medals,  inscriptions,  coats-of- 
arms,  monuments,  etc.,  but  dress,  ornaments,  weapons, 
household  furniture,  dwellings,  and  the  traces  of  events  upon 
physical  things,  such  as  the  signs  of  battle,  or  bombardment, 
or  engineering.  If  all  these  things  are  subjected  to  the 


230  THE  WRITING  OF  ENGLISH 

most  rigid  scrutiny,  they  contribute  enormously  to  the  estab- 
lished facts  of  the  past. 

In  collecting  material,  then,  to  form  the  basis  of  historical 
argument,  remember  that  opinion  is  not  fact:  a  thing  is  not 
true  because  you  think  it  is;  and  authority  is  not  fact:  a  thing 
is  not  true  because  it  is  in  print.  Any  witness  may  be  mis- 
taken, or  he  may  be  misrepresenting.  Fact  is  the  residuum 
after  all  possible  tests  have  been  applied. 

Although  you  are  not  now  in  a  position  to  do  elaborate 
testing  of  facts,  you  cannot  begin  too  soon  to  acquire  the 
habit  of  questioning  the  truth  of  any  unsupported  statement 
— of  being  ready  to  challenge  authority  as  authority,  and  to 
investigate  everything  that  poses  as  fact  without  bearing 
proper  credentials. 

Your  procedure  should  be  as  follows.  Begin  with  the 
standard  compilations  of  fact  in  the  reference  books  of  best 
reputation,  and  from  these  work  back  to  the  original  sources, 
always  bearing  in  mind  the  principles  for  testing  suggested  in 
this  section,  and  applying  them  as  far  as  you  can.  If  you  find 
a  decided  difference  of  opinion  among  authorities,  you  must 
consider  very  carefully  the  claims  of  the  minority  as  over 
against  the  majority.  If,  for  example,  a  single  authority  of 
recognized  high  value,  differs  from  all  who  have  preceded 
him,  it  is  not  without  good  reason;  you  must  look  with  special 
care  to  see  whether  his  presentation  of  the  case  is  well 
supported.  If  he  is  the  latest  authority,  he  may  have  had 
access  to  information  unknown  to  his  predecessors.  And 
the  more  widely  divergent  the  opinions  are,  the  more  you  will 
hesitate  before  deciding  which  is  right. 

In  preparing  arguments  upon  current  topics — problems  in 
politics,  economics,  or  current  events — the  same  care  must 
be  used  to  distinguish  between  facts,  on  the  one  hand,  and 
opinions,  conjectures,  representations,  on  the  other.  Here 
the  difficulty  is  even  greater  than  with  historical  arguments, 
partly  because  the  subjects  themselves  are  so  enormously 


ARGUMENT  231 

complex,  and  so  largely  a  matter  of  principle  or  theory  that 
has  not  been  tested  by  time,  and  partly  because  the  com- 
mon sources  of  information,  newspapers  and  magazines,  are 
always  biased  and  full  of  error.  To  counteract  this  bias,  and 
to  eliminate  these  errors,  it  is  necessary  to  gather  material 
from  sources  representing  as  many  points  of  view  as  possible, 
checking  one  against  another;  in  the  course  of  establishing  a 
balance  of  fact  among  opposing  views,  many  errors  will  be 
eliminated.  It  is  impossible  to  exaggerate  the  importance  of 
sifting  out  facts  in  this  kind  of  argument.  The  chief  reason 
why  so  little  headway  has  been  made  in  settling  many  of  these 
vital  problems  is  the  inability  or  the  unwillingness  of  the 
opposing  parties  to  get  down  to  bare  facts. 

This  is  not  the  place  to  discuss  the  kind  of  argument  used 
in  the  establishment  of  scientific  fact;  but  one  point  may  be 
noted.  The  scientific  method  involves  the  same  kind  of 
close  analysis,  of  narrow  observation,  that  we  discussed  in 
connection  with  history;  and  it  adds  the  testing  of  theory  by 
means  of  experiment. 

In  every  branch  of  knowledge  the  fundamental  principle 
in  regard  to  the  separation  of  facts  from  non-facts,  and  the 
accumulation  of  facts  as  evidence  from  which  by  the  processes 
of  reasoning  we  may  draw  inferences,  is  essentially  the 
same:  the  principle  of  looking  beneath  every  statement  for 
the  facts  that  support  it,  and  beneath  each  of  these  assumed 
facts  for  the  facts  that  support  it,  until  facts  are  reached  which 
are  universally  admitted  to  be  true. 

The  following  practical  suggestions  may  be  helpful: 

1.  Note  only  one  fact  on  a  card;  and  on  the  same  card 
give  all  the  authorities  that  you  find  in  support  of  it. 

2.  Keep  all  these  fact  cards  together  with  an  elastic  band, 
or  in  the  same  index  box. 

3.  Put  each  statement  of  doubtful  authority  on  a  separate 
card,  together  with  such  authority  as  it  has;  and  keep  these 
cards  together  in  a  separate  place. 


232  THE  WRITING  OF  ENGLISH 

4.  As  you  find  upon  further  investigation  that  these  doubt- 
ful facts  either  gain  or  lose  authority,  deal  with  them  accord- 
ingly :  either  transfer  them — when  you  regard  them  as  estab- 
lished— to  the  fact  group,  or  throw  them  out. 

5.  If  when  you  are  ready  to  write  your  argument,  you  still 
have  a  group  of  facts  the  value  of  which  you  have  been  un- 
able to  determine,  either  do  not  use  them  at  all,  or  use  them 
in  footnotes,  with  the  plainest  sort  of  assertion  as  to  their 
doubtful  character.1 

ASSIGNMENT 

1.  Read  the  life  of  Shakespeare  in  the  Dictionary  of  National 
Biography,  or  in  the  best  life  available,  and  write  on  cards  six  facts 
with  the  authority  upon  which  they  depend.    Discuss  these  in  class. 

2.  Using  the  same  sources,  determine  whether  or  not  the  following 
statements  are  facts;  give  the  authority  upon  which  each  depends, 
and  show  that  it  is  or  is  not  good: 

(1)  He  played  before  Queen  Elizabeth. 

(2)  He  was  a  mediocre  actor. 

(3)  He  held  horses  for  noblemen  outside  the  theater  door,  and 
organized  a  company  of  horse  boys. 

(4)  He  planted  a  mulberry  tree  in  his  Stratford  garden. 

(5)  He  knew  the  Earl  of  Southampton. 

3.  If  a  Parish  Register  contains  an  entry  of  a  man's  death  in 
1675,  and  a  biography  of  that  man  quotes  a  document  with  signa- 
ture dated  1679,  how  will  you  reconcile  the  discrepancy  or  get  at 
the  facts?    How  many  possibilities  are  there?    Which  is  most  likely? 

4.  Is  a  newspaper  authority  for  a  fact  of  current  history?    What 
do  you  consider  sufficient  authority  for  such  a  fact? 

5.  How  can  you  test  newspaper  information  about  politics? 

1  Among  useful  works  of  reference  in  getting  material  for  argument  are 
the  following:  the  States-mans  Year  Book,  the  New  York  Times  Index  and 
New  York  Times  Current  History,  the  World  Almanac,  the  Daily  News  Al- 
manac (Chicago),  Whitaker's  Almanac,  the  Journal  of  Political  Economy 
(University  of  Chicago),  the  English  Who's  Who,  and  Who's  Who  in  America, 
the  Encyclopaedia  Brilannica  (llth  edition),  the  Dictionary  of  National 
Biography,  Appleton's  Cyclopaedia  of  National  Biography;  and  the  indexes 
to  periodical  literature  (Poole's  Index  to  1900,  the  Reader's  Guide  since 
1900,  and  the  Annual  Magazine  Subject  Index  (1907,  which  includes  since 
1909  the  Dramatic  Index). 


ARGUMENT  233 

6.  How  can  you  test  technical  information  derived  from  a  pop- 
ular magazine? 

7.  Collect  on  one  set  of  cards  all  the  facts  you  can  on  one  of  the 
following  subjects;  on  other  cards  set  down  material  which  you 
regard  as  untrustworthy.    In  each  case  cite  your  authority  on  the 
same  card  with  the  assertion: 

(1)  The  Filipinos  are  capable  of  self-government. 

(2)   (Insert    the    name    of    some    much- 
advertised  patent  medicine)  is  a  fraud. 

(3)  Automobiles  have  improved  the  roads. 

(4)  War  increases  idealism. 

8.  Discuss  the  value  of  the  following  authorities: 

(1)  Magna  Charta;  Domesday  Book;  the  Declaration  of  Inde- 
pendence; the  Hague  Conventions;  any  deed  of  sale  of  land;  a  will; 
a  marriage  certificate;  the  files  of  a  corporation;  the  Congressional 
Record. 

(2)  Washington's  Letters;  Franklin's  Autobiography;  the  Pas- 
ton  Letters;  Boswell's  Life  of  Johnson;  Luther's  Table  Talk;  the 
histories  of  Herodotus  and  Thucydides;  the  Encyclopaedia  Britann- 
ica;  Carlyle's  French  Revolution;  Macaulay's  History  of  England; 
Taine's  History  of  English  Literature. 

9.  Look  up  the  careers  of  the  following  persons  and  bring  notes 
to  class  as  a  basis  for  discussing  their  authority  in  their  respective 
fields:  Thomas  Huxley;  Thomas  Chrowder  Chamberlin;  Sir  James 
Bryce;  FJie  Metchnikoff;  Alexis  Carrel;  A.  H.  L.  F.  Pitt-Rivers; 
W.  Flinders  Petrie;  Sir  Oliver  Lodge. 

10.  Discuss  the  value  of  the  following  sources  of  indirect  evidence: 

(1)  Botticelli's  paintings  for  Italy  in  the  15th  century. 

(2)  Ornaments  and  implements  of  war  dug  up  in  a  peat  bog  or 
swamp. 

(3)  The  results  of  excavating  the  Roman  Forum. 

(4)  The  topography  to-day  of  the  battlefield  of  Bannockburn. 

(5)  The  architecture  of   the  mediaeval  town  of  Carcassonne  as 
it  looks  to-day. 

3.  INDUCTIVE  REASONING 

The  first  step  in  pursuing  an  inquiry  into  the  truth  of  an 
assertion  is  the  accumulation  and  testing  of  facts;  the  second 
is  the  drawing  of  correct  inferences.  But  the  two  processes 
are  so  closely  associated  that  only  by  stopping  to  analyze 


234  THE  WRITING  OF  ENGLISH 

the  results  that  they  work  together  to  give  do  we  come  to 
realize  the  difference  between  fact  and  inference.  In  the 
building  up  of  argument,  sound  inference  is  as  useful  struc- 
turally as  verified  fact,  and  it  is  not  important  to  distinguish 
between  them.  But  it  is  all-important  to  learn  how  to  draw 
inferences  so  that  they  shall  always  be  sound.  An  error  in 
inference  destroys  the  validity  of  an  argument  as  thoroughly 
as  an  error  in  fact. 

Inferences  are  drawn  from  facts  by  the  two  processes  of 
reasoning.  Inductive  reasoning  proceeds  from  the  particular 
to  the  general,  and  deductive  reasoning  from  the  general 
to  the  particular.  The  two  processes  commonly  supplement 
each  other  in  argument. 

Inductive  reasoning  begins  with  the  observation  of  par- 
ticular facts.  Suppose  that  a  group  of  men  at  the  Club  are 
talking  of  their  sons.  One  says:  "Bill  has  improved  in  every 
way  since  he  went  in  for  military  training."  Another:  "So 
has  Tom."  Another:  "And  Jack."  Another:  "And  Jim." 
Another:  "And  Harry."  Every  man  present,  who  has  a 
son  that  has  gone  in  for  military  training,  makes  a  similar 
statement;  and  every  man  present  draws  the  same  conclu- 
sion: 

Boys  improve  in  every  way  when  they  go  in  for  military 
training. 

In  other  words,  we  have  a  number  of  cases  observed  under 
similar  conditions,  in  which  a  relationship  is  maintained. 
It  may  be,  as  here,  a  cause  and  effect: 

Cause:  Military  training 

Effect:  Improvement  in  boys 

In  cases  1,  2,  3,  n,  military  training  improves  boys;  therefore 
it  will  improve  all  boys. 

Or  the  relationship  may  be  simply  of  identity: 

Fact    1.  This  leaf  (oak)  is  green 

2.  This  leaf  (beech)  is  green 

3.  This  leaf  (pine)  is  green 


ARGUMENT  235 

4.  This  leaf  (geranium)  is  green 
n.  This  leaf  (x,  y)  is  green 

Do  these  facts  justify  the  conclusion?  "All  leaves  are 
green." 

In  this  kind  of  reasoning  from  the  particular  case  to  the 
generalization  that  covers  all  similar  cases,  there  are  two 
possible  sources  of  error: 

1.  Wrong  observation  of  a  particular  case.  Bill  has  im- 
proved in  every  way;  but  Tom,  without  his  father's  knowl- 
edge, has  become  a  gambler.    Jack  has  improved  in  every 
way;  but  Jim  has  overtaxed  his  strength,  and  is,  although  his 
father  does  not  know  it,  on  the  sick  list. 

2.  The  use  of  too  few  facts  to  warrant  the  generalization. 
Five  boys  may  have  improved  under  military  training;  but 
how  about  the  next  five?    How  many  cases  must  be  observed 
before  it  is  safe  to  draw  the  conclusion  that  military  training 
is  beneficial?    And  again,  we  may  observe  the  leaves  of  five 
hundred  trees  and  plants  before  we  find  out  that  the  leaf  of  a 
copper  beech  is  not  green.    But  as  soon  as  we  do  observe  it, 
this  single  fact  invalidates  our  general  conclusion.     It  is 
not  true  that  all  leaves  are  green,  although  it  is  true  that  most 
leaves  are.    Nor  is  it  true  that  all  boys  are  improved  in  every 
way  by  military  training,  although  it  may  be  true  that  most 
boys  are  improved. 

In  the  use  of  inductive  reasoning,  then,  you  must  take  great 
care  (1)  to  scrutinize  each  fact  upon  which  your  conclusion 
depends;  and  (2)  to  avoid  hasty  generalization.  Aside  from 
the  laws  of  science  which  the  experience  of  the  race  has  found 
to  be  invariable,  and  which  are  assumed  to  be  invariable, 
there  are  few  generalizations  without  exception.  But  the 
great  value  of  inductive  reasoning  is  that  it  trains  the  mind 
both  to  recognize  when  generalization  is  valid,  and  to  beware 
of  the  generalization  which  is  only  partly  true  as  a  basis  for 
argument.  The  special  technique  of  scientific  reasoning, 
which  has  been  developed  to  guard  against  the  dangers  of 


236  THE  WRITING  OF  ENGLISH 

the  simple  inductive  method  and  to  supply  its  deficiencies, 
you  will  best  learn  later  in  connection  with  special  problems 
in  your  study  of  one  of  the  sciences. 

ASSIGNMENT 

1.  Show  that  each  of  the  following  generalizations  is  or  is  not 
entirely  true: 

(1)  All  living  things  grow. 

(2)  Every  misfortune  benefits  somebody. 

(3)  All  ambitious  men  are  selfish. 

(4)  All  peacocks  have  gaudy  plumage. 

(5)  Birds  of  a  feather  flock  together. 

(6)  All  women  hate  snakes. 

(7)  All  superfluity  is  a  burden. 

(8)  All  snow  is  cold. 

(9)  Ferns  never  blossom. 
(10)  All  clocks  tick. 

2.  Point  out  the  hasty  and  unwarranted  generalizations  among 
the  following: 

(1)  All  Americans  are  energetic. 

(2)  All  Italians  are  dark.    I  never  saw  one  that  wasn't. 

(3)  I  never  bought  a  pair  of  cheap  gloves  that  were  worth  the 
money. 

(4)  Little  women  always  manage  their  big  husbands.     Look 
at  the  Smiths,  the  Browns,  and  the  Robinsons. 

(5)  Geniuses  are  always  bad-tempered. 

(6)  All  light  is  associated  with  heat. 

(7)  All  green  apples  are  sour. 

(8)  All  women  who  dress  badly  have  bad  taste. 

(9)  All  cats  have  tails. 

(10)  Tyrants  always  come  to  a  bad  end.    Look  at  Louis  XV  and 
Charles  I. 

3.  Discuss  the  possibility  of  making  accurate  generalizations  on 
the  following  points: 

(1)  The  occupations  of  Hungarians  in  the  United  States. 

(2)  The  markings  of  tigers'  skins. 

(3)  The  shape  of  torpedoes. 

(4)  The  untidiness  of  American  cities. 

(5)  The  success  of  college  graduates. 

4.  Under  the  headings  facts  and  conclusion,  outline  the  process 


ARGUMENT  237 

of  inductive  reasoning  that  begins  with  each  of  the  following  ob- 
servations.   Which  lead  to  satisfactory  conclusions? 

(1)  The  lions  in  Central  Park  eat  meat. 

(2)  The  turtle  in  our  pond  can  swim. 

(3)  Our  baby  cries  when  she  is  hungry. 

(4)  I  burned  my  finger  in  the  fire. 

(5)  The  geranium  in  the  north  window  did  not  blossom. 

(6)  That  brown-spotted  apple  is  rotten. 

(7)  The  Eskimo  I  saw  yesterday  had  straight  hair. 

(8)  A  crowded  car  passed  by  without  stopping. 

(9)  It  looks  like  rain  to-day. 

(10)  My  dollar  pair  of  gloves  proved  worthless. 


4.  DEDUCTIVE  REASONING 

Deductive  reasoning  proceeds  from  the  general  to  the  par- 
ticular. It  begins  where  inductive  reasoning  leaves  off,  that 
is,  with  a  generalization,  and  applies  this  to  a  particular  case. 
If  it  is  true  that  all  boys  are  improved  by  military  training, 
then  Frank,  who  is  a  boy,  will  be  improved  by  military 
training. 

In  deductive  reasoning  there  are  three  stages : 

1.  The  generalization,  which  is  called  the  major  premise. 

2.  The  particular  statement,  which  is  called  the  minor 
premise. 

3.  The  inference  from  the  two  premises,  which  is  called 
the  conclusion. 

The  entire  process  of  reasoning  is  called  a  syllogism,  and 
its  form  is  this: 

1.  All  substances  that  turn  litmus  paper  red  are  acids. 

2.  This  substance  turns  litmus  paper  red. 

3.  This  substance  is  an  acid. 

In  the  syllogism  error  comes  in  when 

1.  The  major  premise  is  not  true; 

2.  The  minor  premise  is  not  true; 

3.  The  predicate  of  the  minor  premise  is  not  contained 
in  the  subject  of  the  major. 


238  THE  WRITING  OF  ENGLISH 

The  correctness  of  the  major  premise  depends  upon  the 
correctness  of  the  inductive  reasoning  upon  which  it  is  based. 
If  there  are  non-acid  substances  that  turn  litmus  paper  red, 
the  major  premise  is  false  as  a  result  of  hasty  generalization. 

The  correctness  of  the  minor  premise  depends  upon  correct 
observation.  If  this  substance  does  not  actually  redden 
litmus  paper,  or  if  there  is  another  substance  present  with  it 
to  which  the  reddening  may  be  due,  the  minor  premise  is 
either  untrue  or  doubtful. 

The  conclusion,  you  will  note,  contains  the  subject  of  the 
minor  term  and  the  predicate  of  the  major.    The  syllogism 
may  be  expressed  algebraically  thus: 
A  =  B 
C  =  A 
/.C  =  B 

In  algebraic  language,  the  term  A  is  common  to  both  equa- 
tions; if  A  is  eliminated,  C  =  B. 

But  A  does  not  always  equal  B;  the  class  A  may  be  smaller 
than  the  class  B.  Thus  we  may  make  the  major  premise: 
All  men  are  animals. 

But  there  are  other  animals  besides  men :  A  is  included  in  B. 
Then  if  C  is  included  in  A,  it  must  also  be  included  in  B, 
which  includes  all  A  and  more. 

If,  however,  the  class  A  is  larger  than  B,  the  subject  of 
the  major  premise  becomes  not  all  but  some,  thus: 

"All  birds  with  red  breasts  are  robins"  is  obviously  un- 
true; humming  birds,  scarlet  tanagers,  and  various  other 
birds  have  red  breasts.  The  following  is  therefore  an  in- 
correct syllogism: 

Some  birds  with  red  breasts  are  robins. 
This  bird  has  a  red  breast. 
This  bird  is  a  robin. 

C  is  included  in  A,  but,  as  A  is  greater  than  B,  C  may  fall  in 
that  part  of  A  which  lies  outside  B. 

This  is  one  of  the  commonest  of  the  errors  in  reasoning. 


ARGUMENT  239 

Another  error,  called  "  begging  the  question,"  is  to  assume 
in  either  premise  the  very  thing  that  you  are  trying  to  prove. 
This  fallacy,  easily  detected  when  reduced  to  a  syllogism, 
is  common  in  daily  life.  How  often  do  we  not  hear  a  man 
or  a  cause  judged  because  of  certain  acts  and  the  next 
moment  hear  the  character  of  the  man  or  cause  cited  to 
prove  the  good  or  bad  character  of  the  acts.  The  com- 
monest form  of  this  fallacy  is  the  use  of  a  term  which  really 
involves  the  point  at  issue:  Women's  Rights;  Freedom  of 
the  Seas. 

When  begging  the  question  is  pushed  so  far  that  each  of 
two  arguments  is  offered  as  proof  of  the  other,  the  fallacy 
is  called  reasoning  in  a  circle,  thus: 

I.  All  the  laws  passed  in  our  legislature  this  year  are  bad, 
because  the  legislature  is  notoriously  incompetent. 

II.  Our  state  legislature  is  thoroughly  incompetent,  as  is 
shown  by  the  bad  laws  passed  this  year. 

Many  other  fallacies  in  reasoning  are  classified  by  logicians, 
the  discussion  of  which  belongs  to  a  course  in  argumentation. 
In  the  simple  forms  of  reasoning  which  you  will  be  required  to 
undertake  now,  it  is  enough  to  remember  the  following  hints : 

1.  Make  sure  that  both  premises  are  correct;  that  is,  that 
they  are  not  untrue,  and  that  they  are  known  to  be  true  and 
do  not  beg  the  question. 

2.  In  a  series  of  two  or  more  syllogisms,  each  of  which 
uses  the  conclusion  of  the  preceding  as  a  premise,  do  not  use 
the  conclusion  of  the  last  as  a  premise  of  the  first;  that  is, 
do  not  reason  in  a  circle. 

3.  Stick  to  the  point.    When  a  prosecuting  attorney,  in- 
stead of  dwelling  upon  the  evidence  against  the  prisoner, 
emphasizes  in  detail  the  enormity  of  the  crime,  he  is  talking 
off  the  point  in  order  to  secure  conviction. 

4.  Do  not  change  the  meaning  of  a  term.    Make  sure  that 
there  is  no  possible  ambiguity  in  the  meaning  of  the  terms 
used.      If  you  say  that  all  charitable  men  love  their  fellows 


240  THE  WRITING  OF  ENGLISH 

as  themselves,  and  then  that  a  man  who  throws  a  penny  to  a 
beggar  is  charitable,  you  have  changed  the  meaning  of  the 
word  charitable,  and  so  invalidated  your  conclusion;  the  man 
who  throws  a  penny  to  a  beggar  does  not  love  his  fellows  as 
himself. 

The  chief  value  of  the  syllogism  in  argument  is  that  by 
analyzing  the  process  of  thinking  it  shows  clearly  whether 
there  is  an  error  in  the  process  and  also  whether  the  error  is  a 
matter  of  fact  or  of  inference  from  facts. 

ASSIGNMENT 

1.  Express  in  syllogistic  form  the  reasoning  that  underlies  each 
of  the  following: 

(1)  Mrs.  Harrison  is  an  intelligent  woman.     It  is  her  duty  to 
vote. 

(2)  Farrell  does  not  need  an  income  tax  schedule.    His  income 
is  only  twelve  hundred  a  year  and  he  is  married. 

(3)  You  ought  to  enlist.    You  are  twenty-one. 

(4)  We  shall  have  pork  and  beans  for  dinner.    It  is  Saturday, 
and  we  are  New  Englanders. 

(5)  She  cannot  get  more  than  fourteen  hundred  a  year.    She  is 
a  Government  stenographer. 

(6)  This  flower  must  be  a  shooting  star.      It  agrees  exactly 
with  the  description  of  that  species  in  my  botany. 

(7)  We  have  so  many  trunks  that  we  are  sure  to  have  trouble 
at  the  customs. 

(8)  This  news  is  too  good  to  be  true. 

(9)  That  must  be  a  Manx  cat.    It  has  no  tail. 

(10)  This  is  a  very  superficial  book,  as  a  careful  reading  of  the 
table  of  contents  will  show. 

2.  Point  out  the  fallacies  in  the  following,  and  explain  where 
the  trouble  lies: 

(1)  This  is  a  first-rate  automobile;  it  was  made  by  the  Getrich 
Quick  Company,  and  they  turn  out  no  other  kind. 

(2)  He  must  be  an  honorable  man.     He  supports  his  mother 
and  sisters. 

(3)  He  is  thoroughly  truthful.    I  have  never  caught  him  in  a  lie. 

(4)  That  bird  is  a  canary.    Don't  you  see  how  yellow  it  is? 

(5)  Of  course  he  is  a  musician.    Look  at  his  hair. 


ARGUMENT  241 

(6)  Government  ownership  of  public  utilities  will  lead  to  social- 
ism because  it  will  mean  ownership  of  public  utilities  by  the  people. 

(7)  He  is  the  most  popular  author  in  existence,  for  he  is  the  most 
popular  author  in  the  United  States,  and  in  the  United  States  people 
read  more  than  in  any  other  country  in  the  world. 

(8)  This  is  an  interesting  book,  because  it  is  by  H.  G.  Wells. 

(9)  Hicks  will  be  a  great  orator;  he  reasons  better  than  any 
other  man  in  the  class. 

(10)  We  shall  win  every  game  next  year.    We  have  a  new  coach. 

(11)  That  civilization  is  a  disease  is  proved  by  the  number  of 
doctors  found  among  the  civilized  nations.    Compare  the  savage 
races  in  this  respect. 

(12)  That  must  be  a  robin.    Look  at  his  red  breast. 

(13)  You  can  tell  by  merely  looking  at  him  that  he's  a  genius. 

(14)  You  ought  to  take  music  lessons.    Your  hands  are  so  flexible. 

(15)  He  must  be  an  old  soldier.    He  has  only  one  leg. 

(16)  Of  course  he  says  "these  sort  of."    Isn't  he  English? 

(17)  Do  you  notice  how  his  hand  shakes?    He  must  drink. 

(18)  You  must  study  Greek  if  you  wish  to  be  cultured. 

\ 


5.  INDUCTIVE  AND  DEDUCTIVE  REASONING 

In  argument,  inductive  and  deductive  reasoning  are  used 
continually  to  support  each  other.  For  instance,  inductive 
reasoning  establishes  from  many  observations  the  general 
conclusion: 

All  rattlesnakes  are  poisonous. 

You  meet  a  snake  which  you  take  to  be  a  rattlesnake,  and 
in  a  flash  you  conclude  that  it  will  be  poisonous;  your  thought 
process,  of  which  you  are  unaware,  is : 

All  rattlesnakes  are  poisonous. 

This  snake  is  a  rattlesnake. 

This  snake  is  poisonous. 

But  how  do  you  know  that  this  snake  is  a  rattlesnake?  By 
another  lightning-speed  syllogism  you  reason: 

All  snakes  that  make  a  certain  peculiar  sound  are  rattle- 
snakes. 


242  THE  WRITING  OF  ENGLISH 

This  snake  made  that  peculiar  sound. 
This  snake  is  a  rattlesnake. 
But  may  not  some  harmless  snakes  make  the  same  sound? 

Observation  has  shown  that 

Snake  No.  1,  No.  2,  No.  3,  etc.,  which  made  that  peculiar 
sound,  all  had  the  other  qualities  that  distinguish  the  rattle- 
snake. 

Therefore  we  say,  by  inductive  reasoning: 

All  snakes  that  make  that  peculiar  sound  have  the  other 
qualities  that  distinguish  rattlesnakes. 

The  connection  between  the  two  processes  is  so  close  that 
unless  we  stop  with  the  generalization  based  upon  inductive 
reasoning,  we  are  often  scarcely  aware  that  it  stands  between 
the  particular  cases  in  which  we  are  interested.  For  instance, 
if  our  thoughts  are  put  into  words,  the  sound  of  a  rattle  will 
usually  lead  to :  "  There's  a  rattlesnake — run ! "  and  we  are  not 
conscious  of  the  whole  process  which  has  just  been  traced  from 
particular  to  general  and  from  general  to  particular  again. 
But  it  is  only  by  much  practice  in  this  kind  of  deliberate 
analysis  that  we  learn  to  see  errors  in  fact  and  inference — 
fallacies  due  to  faulty  observation,  hasty  generalization, 
and  wrong  classification. 

ASSIGNMENT 

1.  Analyze  the  double  process  of  reasoning  involved  in  each  of 
the  following;  and  point  out  any  fallacies  that  you  discover: 

(1)  This  pear  is  very  hard.     I  am  afraid  it  is  not  ripe. 

(2)  It  will  rain  to-morrow.    There's  a  mackerel  sky. 

(3)  I  shall  not  study  late  the  night  before  examination.    I  shall 
fail  if  I  do. 

(4)  I  think  that  animal  is  a  tapir.     I  read  a  description  of  one 
the  other  day. 

(5)  This  warm  sunshine  after  rain  will  open  the  buds. 

(6)  Washington  must  have  loved  country  life  or  he  wouldn't 
have  built  Mount  Vernon. 

(7)  This  strike  will  fail.    The  men's  families  are  starving. 


ARGUMENT  243 

(8)  Of  course  he's  a  grafter.     You  can  see  him  hanging  about 
the  City  Hall  every  day. 

(9)  Yes,  madam,  this  train  stops  at  60th  Street. 

(10)  Of  course  you  will  succeed,  you  have  never  failed  yet. 

2.  Collect  from  a  newspaper  ten  statements  which  involve  both 
inductive  and  deductive  reasoning;  and  analyze  them  to  see  whether 
they   are   sound   or  involve   fallacies.     If  fallacies  are  involved, 
analyze  them  also. 

3.  Illustrate  by  as  many  examples  as  possible  the  statement:  The 
heresy  of  to-day  is  the  superstition  of  to-morrow. 

4.  What  reasons  do  you  suppose  led  Columbus  to  believe  that 
there  was  a  continent  across  the  ocean?    After  noting  your  reasons 
on  cards,  look  up  the  reasons  that  he  offered,  and  the  objections 
that  were  raised  to  them.    Why  did  he  have  so  much  difficulty  in 
making  people  accept  his  conclusion? 

G.  ANALOGY 

Argument  by  analogy  proceeds  on  the  theory  that  things 
which  are  alike  in  some  respects  will  be  alike  in  others.  It 
commonly  begins  by  observing  a  familiar  thing  in  some  rela- 
tion, and  upon  observation  of  a  resemblance  between  the 
familiar  thing  and  something  unknown  proceeds  to  the  con- 
clusion that  the  unknown  thing  also  will  have  the  same  rela- 
tion as  the  known  which  it  resembles.  Thus  the  ancients 
observed  that  the  living  butterfly  emerges  from  the  appar- 
ently dead  chrysalis,  and  reasoned  by  analogy  that  in  like 
manner  the  living  soul  of  man  would  emerge  from  his  dead 
body.  A  most  elaborate  argument  of  this  kind  is  a  book 
which  made  a  stir  in  the  nineteenth  century,'  Drummond's 
Natural  Law  in  the  Spiritual  World.  Clearly,  natural  law  can 
never  actually  apply  to  spiritual  things;  but  on  the  basis  of 
a  certain  parallelism  between  natural  and  spiritual  things, 
the  argument  became  extremely  plausible. 

In  practical  life,  however,  analogy  is  commonly  used  by 
the  lazy  or  untrained  thinker  as  a  substitute  for  induction. 
The  general  method  is  to  proceed  from  one  particular  to 
another,  on  the  hypothesis  that  like  causes  produce  like 


244  THE  WRITING  OF  ENGLISH 

effects;  hence  to  argue  by  analogy  is  to  look  for  resemblances 
and  to  ignore  differences.  A  farmer's  wife  reading  a  patent 
medicine  advertisement  reasons  by  analogy  that  what  has 
cured  another  woman  whose  symptoms  are  said  to  resemble 
hers  will  cure  her.  This  illustration  shows  the  great  weakness 
of  analogy.  The  farmer's  wife  has  only  the  most  superficial 
knowledge  of  her  disease;  the  real  cause  may  be,  and  usually 
is,  something  that  has  no  relation  whatever  to  the  patent 
medicine — even  if  the  medicine  is  good  for  anything. 

The  chief  use  for  this  type  of  argument  is  for  the  projection 
of  scientific  hypotheses.  Argument  by  analogy  suggested 
that  if  a  bird  could  fly,  a  machine  could  be  built  to  fly;  it 
suggested  that  as  conditions  for  habitation  have  been  ob- 
served on  Mars,  it  is  probable  that  Mars  is  inhabited;  that  as 
certain  social  conditions  were  the  prelude  to  the  fall  of  the 
Roman  Empire,  similar  social  conditions  in  any  society  will 
be  followed  by  its  destruction. 

The  argument  from  analogy  has  never  any  validity  un- 
less the  resemblances  between  the  familiar  object  and  the 
unknown  are  due  to  the  same  cause.  This  cannot  be  definitely 
ascertained  merely  by  the  processes  of  analogical  argument. 
But  the  human  mind  tends  strongly  to  accept  as  parallel 
throughout  two  objects  which  present  a  large  number  of 
points  of  similarity.  The  chemist  who  reasons  by  analogy 
that  an  unknown  sour  substance  will  redden  litmus  is  right 
because  the  same  cause — acidity — exists  in  the  unknown  sub- 
stance as  in  a  familiar  acid;  but  the  child  who  reasons  that 
kerosene  will  put  out  fire  because  it  resembles  water  in  ap- 
pearance will  have  a  sad  awakening. 

In  arguing  by  analogy,  remember  two  things:  (1)  that  it 
has  no  value  as  argument  unless  the  resemblances  that  are 
perceived  and  those  that  are  inferred  are  due  to  similar 
causes;  and  (2)  that  its  chief  value  is  to  establish  working 
hypotheses,  and  that  these  hypotheses  should  never  in  the 
course  of  argument  be  confused  with  facts. 


ARGUMENT  245 

ASSIGNMENT 

1.  Show  how  the  advertising  agent  reasons  by  analogy. 

2.  Syllogize  the  reasoning  by  which  a  friend  presses  a  remedy  for 
cold  upon  you  when  you  have  a  cold. 

3.  State  the  reasoning  by  analogy  under  the  following:  "How  can 
you  read  Don  Quixote?    It's  such  a  stupid  book.    Try  East  Lynne — 
that's  true  to  life." 

4.  Look  up  the  argument  of  Menenius  in  Coriolanus  I,  1,  lOlff., 
in  which  he  argues  by  analogy  that  the  State  is  constructed  on  the 
same  principles  as  the  human  body.    Criticize  the  soundness  of  the 
argument. 

5.  Make  a  list  of  the  arguments  by  analogy  to  be  found  in  the 
parables  of  the  New  Testament;  and  discuss  them. 

6.  Write  in  about  100  words  the  use  made  of  analogy  by  the 
astronomer  who  reasons  that  Mars  is  inhabited. 

7.  Analyze  the  analogies  in  the  following  lines  of  reasoning,  and 
show  which  are  of  value  and  which  are  useless  for  purposes  of 
argument: 

(1)  True,  the  very  poor  do  survive  and  grow;  but  so  do  potatoes 
in  a  dark  cellar. 

(2)  Robert  Bruce,  at  the  lowest  ebb  of  his  fortunes,  was  en- 
couraged to  continue  his  fight  against  the  English  by  watching  a 
spider's  efforts  to  build  a  web  in  the  face  of  repeated  failure. 

(3)  There  is  an  Anglo-Saxon  story  about  a  sparrow  that  flew  into 
the  firelit  hall  of  a  king,  remained  there  a  short  time,  and  then  flew 
away  again,  which  was  used  as  an  analogy  referring  to  the  existence 
of  the  soul  before  and  after  this  life. 

(4)  "There  is  a  tide  in  the  affairs  of  men, 
Which,  taken  at  the  flood,  leads  on  to  fortune; 
Omitted,  all  the  voyage  of  their  life 

Is  bound  in  shallows  and  in  miseries." — Shakespeare. 

(5)  Crime  is  infectious. 

(6)  Tennyson's  Crossing  the  Bar. 

(7)  Franklin's  reasoning  when  he  invented  the  lightning-rod. 

(8)  Political  graft  is  the  cancer  of  our  nation. 

(9)  Our  civilization  will  perish  like  "the  glory  that  was  Greece, 
and  the  grandeur  that  was  Rome." 

(10)  Women  should  go  into  politics;  they  will  run  the  national 
housekeeping  as  effectively  as  they  manage  their  own. 

8.  Collect  from  the  newspaper,  or  from  conversation,  or  from 
any  other  source,  half  a  dozen  cases  of  argument  by  analogy  that 


246  THE  WRITING  OF  ENGLISH 

you  think  you  can  justify  as  useful;  and  as  many  that  prove  nothing 
whatever. 

9.  Find  instances  in  science  where  the  use  of  analogy  has  led  to 
the  suggestion  of  valuable  hypotheses. 
10.  Explain  and  criticize  the  following  arguments  by  analogy: 

"The  flower  will  die  but  the  atoms  of  which  it  is  composed  will 
not  perish.  There  are  poets  as  well  as  students  who  know  that  the 
atom  is  invisible  and  indestructible.  The  most  thoroughgoing 
materialist  is  sure  that  death  does  not  end  all  for  the  atom.  There 
is  no  way  in  which  you  can  end  it.  You  may  burn  it  with  fire  in 
your  furnace,  and  with  acid  in  your  alembic.  You  may  tear  it 
asunder  with  electric  contrivances,  but  it  laughs  in  your  face.  Im- 
perishability is  not  of  course  immortality,  but  it  suggests  it." 

"Second.  The  relation  of  thought  and  brain.  Is  the  disintegra- 
tion of  the  brain  the  annihilation  of  thought  and  consciousness? 
So  the  materialists  have  always  asserted,  but  the  brain  may  be  only 
the  medium  by  which  thought  is  transmitted,  as  the  wire  is  the 
medium  which  transmits  your  telegram.  Destroy  the  wire  and 
your  thought  may  still  be  transmitted  by  wireless." 

7.  PERSUASION 

In  argument  that  is  intended  not  merely  to  convince  people 
of  the  truth  of  a  proposition  but  to  move  them  to  act  upon 
it,  persuasion — the  appeal  to  the  emotions — is  almost  as 
important  as  conviction.  In  an  argument  to  be  presented 
before  a  popular  audience,  it  is  often  more  effective  than  the 
appeal  to  reason. 

The  principle  that  underlies  persuasion  is  that  of  getting 
and  keeping  the  audience  with  you.  This  can  be  done  in 
various  ways — by  avoiding  their  known  prejudices,  by  ap- 
pealing to  their  sense  of  humor  or  to  their  sense  of  pathos, 
by  rousing  personal  interest  in  yourself,  by  awakening  strong 
emotions  and  impulses  to  action,  and  so  on.  Success  in  per- 
suasion is  not  a  matter  of  reasoning,  but  of  understanding 
human  nature. 

Aside  from  the  unconsciously  persuasive  effect  of  dress, 
manner,  gesture,  voice,  utterance,  and  personal  magnetism — 
the  whole  effect  of  which  should  give  the  audience  an  impres- 


ARGUMENT  247 

sion  of  the  speaker's  competency,  sincerity,  earnestness, 
and  fairmindedness — there  are  certain  qualities  to  be  aimed 
at  in  the  preparation  of  the  argument  itself  which  add  to  the 
persuasiveness  of  its  appeal.  These  aims  may  be  summed  up 
as  follows: 

1.  The  introduction  should  be  so  planned  that  the  opening 
words  will  attract  attention  and  rouse  some  emotion  which 
will  create  an  atmosphere  of  sympathy  for  the  speaker  and 
his  argument.    The  commonest  way  of  securing  this  attitude 
is  by  an  amusing  anecdote.    This  is  a  good  way  if  the  story 
is  amusing,  new,  and  really  pertinent  to  the  subject  in  hand. 
A  detached  and  dragged-in  anecdote  does  not  deceive  an 
intelligent  audience.     But  there  are  other  ways  of  setting 
the  right  emotional  key  in  the  beginning.    One  is  to  startle 
by  some  unexpected  or  amazing  statement.    Statistics  may 
have  the  effect  of  rousing  an  audience.    If,  for  instance,  you 
wish  to  stir  people  to  act  against  the  patent  medicine  frauds, 
the  fact  that  $400,000,000  was  wasted  by  the  country  on 
worthless  remedies  in  a  single  year  might  have  a  stimulating 
effect.    Often  a  striking  concrete  illustration  of  the  problem 
under  discussion  will  have  more  effect  than  statistics;  for 
instance,  if  you  are  arguing  that  charity  impedes  progress, 
you  may  overcome  to  some  extent  a  natural  prejudice  against 
the  phrasing  of  the  subject  by  relating  in  detail  the  pauper- 
ization of  a  family  through  the  well-intentioned  but  mistaken 
efforts  of  charitable  organizations.    A  striking  contrast  may 
make  a  good  beginning;  if,  for  instance,  you  are  arguing  in 
favor  of  an  inheritance  tax,  you  may  contrast  the  amounts 
contributed  to  the  nation  by  the  working-man  and  the  mil- 
lionaire.   However  you  begin,  you  must  work  for  an  imme- 
diate response;  and  the  more  prejudiced  against  your  sub- 
ject you  have  reason  to  believe  your  hearers  are,  the  more 
necessary  it  is  to  divert  their  thoughts  from  their  prejudices 
into  some  emotional  channel. 

2.  In  planning  and  composing  your  argument,  you  must 


248  THE  WRITING  OF  ENGLISH 

never  forget  for  a  moment  the  kind  of  people  who  are  to  hear 
or  to  read  it.  There  are  many  ways  in  which  the  same  set  of 
facts  may  be  presented;  and  the  choice  should  depend  upon 
the  ideas  and  ideals  of  the  audience.  By  keeping  your  audi- 
ence in  mind,  you  can  avoid  clashing  with  their  principles 
and  their  prejudices,  can  draw  your  illustrations  from 
forms  of  life  that  are  familiar  and  interesting  to  them,  can 
adapt  your  sentences  and  phrasing  to  their  ways  of  speech, 
and  can  appeal  to  the  kind  of  emotion  by  which  you  have 
reason  to  believe  they  will  be  moved.  An  audience  of  college 
men  and  an  audience  of  miners,  a  New  York  audience  and  a 
New  Orleans  audience  would  respond  to  entirely  different 
modes  of  appeal.  It  is  only  by  a  discriminating  knowledge 
of  human  nature  in  its  fundamentals — its  fixed  ideas,  its 
watchwords  and  its  real  motives,  its  weaknesses,  its  ca- 
pacities for  enthusiasm,  its  admirations  and  its  derisions,  its 
sentimentalities  and  its  types  of  humor — that  you  can  hope 
to  control  an  audience  as  a  skilful  driver  controls  a  horse. 
And  this  knowledge  can  be  bought  only  at  the  price  of  end- 
less observation  and  introspection.  But  every  man  above 
the  grade  of  a  moron  knows  enough  about  his  fellowmen  and 
himself  to  make  the  tastes  and  temper  of  his  audience  prime 
considerations  in  preparing  an  argument. 

3.  Phrase  definitely  to  yourself  what  you  wish  your  speech 
to  accomplish,  and  recur  to  this  aim  whenever  you  can  in 
the  course  of  the  argument.  To  be  definite  without  antag- 
onizing, to  be  insistent  without  nagging,  to  reiterate  without 
boring — this  is  the  way  to  convert  argument  into  action; 
but  so  large  a  part  of  success  depends  upon  the  personality 
of  the  speaker  and  the  mood  of  his  audience  that  it  is  im- 
possible to  give  more  detailed  directions.  Good-nature,  tact, 
earnestness,  and  perfect  simplicity — all  are  assets  that  tend 
to  secure  results. 


ARGUMENT  249 

ASSIGNMENT 

1.  Discuss  the  methods  of  persuasion  that  should  be  used  in 
presenting  the  following  subjects  under  the  conditions  stated: 

(1)  Housing  reform  before  an  audience  of  poor  people  at  a  college 
settlement;  before  a  city  council;  before  a  group  of  specialists  in 
social  science 

(2)  Tariff  reform  before  a  Democratic  audience;  before  a  Repub- 
lican audience 

(3)  The  problem  of  the  unemployed  at  a  meeting  of  hoboes;  be- 
fore the  committee  of  a  legislative  body 

(4)  Women's  suffrage  at  a  mass  meeting  of  women;  before  a 
committee  of  the  Senate 

(5)  Vocational  training  at  a  meeting  of  an  employers'  association ; 
at  an  educational  meeting;  at  a  meeting  of  representatives  of  labor 
unions 

(G)  A  political  speech  advocating  the  election  of  a  certain  can- 
didate, before  a  mixed  audience;  before  an  audience  of  ardent  sup- 
porters of  the  candidate 

(7)  The  objections   to  college   fraternities   before  an  audience 
composed  entirely  of  fraternity  men;  before  a  mixed  audience 

(8)  The  curse  of  wealth — a  sermon  before  a  wealthy  congregation 

(9)  The  defense  of  a  prisoner  against  whom  there  is  strong  public 
prejudice 

(10)  The  prosecution  of  a  prisoner  who  is  supported  by  public 
sympathy 

2.  Think  of  some  public  speaker  whom  you  have  heard  and  ad- 
mire, and  make  notes  from  memory  of  the  methods  of  persuasion 
that  he  uses.     If  you  have  opportunity,  hear  him  again,  and  make 
your  notes  immediately  afterward.     Discuss   these  notes  in  class, 
and  make  a  summary  of  the  most  effective  uses  of  persuasion. 

8.  PREPARING  A  FORMAL  ARGUMENT 

Every  formal  argument  consists  of  three  distinctly  dif- 
ferent parts:  Introduction,  Body,  and  Conclusion. 

I.  The  Introduction  states  and  expounds  the  proposition 
to  be  proved,  and  gives  the  history  of  it  and  the  reasons  for 
discussing  it  now,  if  these  are  to  be  given  at  all,  and  the  state- 
ment of  the  main  issues  of  the  argument.  The  issues  are  the 
assertions  upon  which  choice  of  sides  in  the  argument  de- 


250  THE  WRITING  OF  ENGLISH 

pends.  You  may  read  or  think  over  a  great  mass  of  ideas 
associated  with  a  certain  problem — for  instance,  your  ca- 
reer— and  finally,  by  a  process  of  gradual  elimination,  you 
may  say  to  yourself:  "I  think  that  I  ought  to  go  in  for  pol- 
itics when  I  have  taken  my  degree  for 

1.  A  democracy  can  be  made  a  success  only  when  its 
government  is  in  the  hands  of  experts; 

2.  Only  college-bred  men  can  be  experts  in  government; 

3.  Few  college-bred  men  seem  to  be  awake  to  then*  op- 
portunity in  this  direction; 

4.  As  far  as  I  can  measure  my  own  abilities,  they  point  to 
public  work  of  this  kind  as  that  for  which  I  am  fitted." 

In  this  way  you  sift  out  the  relevant  material  from  the 
irrelevant,  you  distinguish  the  important  from  the  less  im- 
portant, and  you  see  the  chief  points  that  coordinate  to 
support  your  view.  These  are  the  main  issues. 

It  is  of  the  utmost  importance  that  in  the  Introduction 
the  precise  point  on  which  the  argument  turns  should  be 
exactly  stated  and  its  terms  exactly  defined  whenever  there 
is  any  possibility  of  misunderstanding.  All  general  terms, 
especially — such  as  socialism,  charity,  honor,  religion,  democ- 
racy— should  be  clearly  defined  before  any  argument  deals 
with  them. 

The  Introduction  of  an  argument  is  expository  in  character, 
except  in  so  far  as  the  element  of  persuasion  may  be  present. 

II.  The  Body  of  the  argument  contains  all  the  proof,  and 
consists  of  an  orderly  arrangement  of  the  evidence  in  support 
of  the  proposition,  so  outlined  that  each  main  assertion  sup- 
ports the  conclusion  and  is  in  turn  supported  by  one  or  more 
subordinate  assertions,  the  process  being  continued  until  it 
is  evident  that  the  whole  structure  rests  upon  a  solid  founda- 
tion of  facts. 

III.  The  Conclusion  repeats  the  proposition  in  terms  of  its 
main  issues,  and  sums  up  the  proofs  that  have  been  offered 
in  support  of  each. 


ARGUMENT  251 

Before  attempting  to  write  a  formal  argument,  you  should 
outline  the  whole  process  of  your  thought  according  to  a 
special  form  of  outline  which  is  technically  called  the  brief. 

The  brief  is  a  device  for  securing  perfect  clearness  of  rela- 
tionship in  constructing  an  argument.  It  is  simply  a  detailed 
plan  of  the  thought,  and  should  state  as  concisely  as  possible 
every  point  made.  For  convenience  in  presenting  and  in 
refuting  arguments  it  has  been  generally  agreed  that  briefs 
shall  be  constructed  according  to  very  definite  rules,  of 
which  the  following  are  the  most  important: 

1.  It  should  include  the  three  main  divisions  of  the  argu- 
ment: Introduction,  Body,  and  Conclusion. 

2.  It  should  be  divided  into  heads  and  subheads,  marked 
by  the  same  symbols  as  those  used  in  the  ordinary  outline. 
See  below. 

3.  The  Introduction  should  outline  the  main  issues  of  the 
proposition,  which  should  appear  as  the  main  heads  under 
the  proof  and  be  restated,  together  with  a  summary  of  the 
proof  offered,  in  the  Conclusion. 

4.  Each  head  should  be  phrased  as  a  complete  statement. 

5.  Each  head  should  make  only  one  assertion. 

6.  In  the  proof,  each  head  should  support  the  head  to 
which  it  is  subordinated.    This  relationship  is  sometimes  in- 
dicated by  inserting  the  word  because  or  for  at  the  end  of 
every  head  that  calls  for  proof.    It  is  then  possible  to  see  at  a 
glance  whether  or  not  the  subordinate  head  gives  or  does  not 
give  the  reason  on  which  the  head  to  which  it  is  subordinated 
depends  for  its  weight.     But  when  this  relationship  is  not 
expressed,  it  should  be  unmistakable. 

You  may  use  the  following  type  of  brief  as  a  model : 
A  progressive  inheritance  tax  should  be  adopted  by  the  Federal 
Government  as  a  permanent  means  of  revenue. 

I.  The  Federal  Government  needs  a  large  increase  of  revenue 

A.  There  is  even  now  always  a  deficit 

B.  Our  expenses  in  the  future  will  be  much  greater  than 

now 


252  THE  WRITING  OF  ENGLISH 

1.  We  must  meet  heavy  war  expenses 

2.  We  must  develop  our  foreign  trade 

3.  We  must  develop  our  merchant  marine  to  pro- 

mote this  trade 

4.  We  must  expend  more  on  the  development  and 

conservation  of  our  natural  resources 

II.  The  present  sources  of  Federal  revenue  cannot  be  relied  upon 
to  provide  the  increase  necessary 

A.  The  tariff  cannot  supply  the  increase 

1.  It  is  dependent  upon  politics 

2.  It  cannot  be  adjusted  on  the  basis  of  revenue 

requirements 

3.  It  is  not  naturally  progressive  and  cannot  be 

made  so 

B.  Internal  revenue  cannot  supply  the  increase 

1.  The  liquor  tax  has  dwindled  to  an  insignificant 

sum 

2.  A  tax  on  business  papers  would  both  bring  in 

little  and,  except  in  great  crises,  be  obnoxious 
to  the  people 

3.  A  tax  on  tea  and  coffee  would  be  objectionable 

a.  It  is  a  tax  on  quasi-necessaries  of  life 

b.  It  would  be  disproportionately  heavy  on  the 

poor 

C.  The  income  tax  cannot  supply  the  increase 

1.  The  rates  cannot  be  raised  high  enough  to  pro- 

vide the  sums  necessary 

2.  The  exemptions  cannot  be  lowered  enough  to 

provide  them 

III.  No  other  forms  of  taxation  that  will  produce  large  revenues 

are  available  except  the  tax  on  inheritances 
[Not  developed] 

IV.  The  inheritance  tax  is  satisfactory 

A.  It  is  adequate 

1.  A  moderate  tax  on  present  inheritances  would 

produce  large  revenues 

2.  As  the  wealth  of  the  country  increases,  the  rev- 

enue would  increase  automatically 

B.  It  would  not  harm  the  states 

[Not  developed] 

C.  It  fulfills  all  the  canons  of  a  good  tax 

1.  It  is  easily  and  justly  assessable 


ARGUMENT  253 

2.  It  is  easy  to  collect 

3.  It  is  stable 

4.  It  is  easily  calculable  in  advance 

V.  It  can  be  made  an  instrument  to  relieve  undue  congestion 
of  wealth  in  single  hands 
[Not  developed] 

The  Refutation  is  that  part  of  an  argument  which  is  de- 
voted to  answering  the  arguments  of  the  opposite  side. 
In  formal  debating  this  has  its  definite  position  in  the  pro- 
gram, and  the  preparation  for  the  effective  refutation  of 
one's  opponents  is  one  of  the  most  important  parts  of  the 
general  preparation  of  the  debaters;  for  an  attack  from  an 
unexpected  point  of  vantage  or  with  unforeseen  arguments 
or  ammunition  might  prove  disastrous.  The  subject  of  de- 
bating, however,  does  not  belong  to  this  book,  and  details 
of  procedure  must  be  left  for  special  treatises  on  the  subject. 
In  arguments  of  a  less  formal  character,  refutation,  while  not 
assigned  a  fixed  position  in  the  plan  or  outline,  is  neverthe- 
less often  of  the  highest  importance.  Even  when  there  is  no 
definite  opponent  to  present  the  arguments  of  the  other  side, 
those  arguments  are  sometimes  so  generally  known  or  be- 
lieved to  be  convincing  that  one  is  obliged  to  take  account  of 
them.  Sometimes  it  is  best  to  break  the  force  of  these  ar- 
guments before  proceeding  to  set  forth  one's  own  views  and 
reasons;  sometimes  it  is  best  to  leave  them  untouched  until 
one  has  built  up  a  strong  presumption  in  favor  of  the  views 
one  is  presenting.  Sometimes  adroit  speakers  and  writers 
gain  a  temporary  success  by  dismissing  the  arguments  of 
opponents  as  trifling  or  out  of  date  or  sufficiently  refuted  by 
others;  but  this  is  not  often  either  honest  or  safe. 

ASSIGNMENT 

1.  Draw  a  brief  in  correct  form  for  the  affirmative  or  the  neg- 
ative— whichever  you  believe — of  each  of  the  following  propositions : 

(1)  Secret  societies  should  be  abolished  from  high  schools. 

(2)  Public  libraries,  museums,  and  art  galleries  should  be  open 
on  Sunday. 


254  THE  WRITING  OF  ENGLISH 

(3)  Admission  to  college  should  be  by  examination  only. 

(4)  Labor  Unions  are  against  the  real  interests  of  the  working- 
man. 

(5)  Professional  training  should  be  preceded  by  two  years  of 
college  work. 

(6)  There  should  be  an  educational  test  for  voters. 

(7)  Free  public  employment  bureaus  should  be  established  in 
each  state. 

(8)  The  president  of  the  United  States  should  be  elected  for  one 
term  only,  but  of  six  years'  duration. 

(9)  The  United  States  should  establish  old  age  pensions. 

(10)  All  text-books  used  in  the  grammar  schools  should  be  fur- 
nished by  the  state. 


CHAPTER  XIH 
THE  VALUES  OF  WORDS 

THE  dictionary  defines  words,  but  it  tells  very  little  about 
their  values  in  speech  or  hi  writing.  Their  values  depend 
upon  the  company  they  keep — their  association  with  ideas, 
on  the  one  hand,  and  on  the  other,  with  then*  neighbors  in 
the  sentence. 

With  the  exception  of  connectives  and  interjections,  all 
words  either  present  ideas  or  modify  them.  Ideas  are  de- 
rived either  directly  or  indirectly  from  impressions  made 
upon  the  mind  by  the  external  world  of  things  and  their 
qualities  and  relationships.  We  begin  with  the  observation 
of  things  and  learn  to  identify  them  by  their  qualities;  but 
at  the  same  time  we  learn  to  differentiate  them  from  other 
things,  and  we  are  engaged  in  a  continual  process  of  compar- 
ing the  ideas  derived  from  things  with  a  view  to  establishing 
relationships  of  likeness  and  difference  among  them.  In  all 
these  processes  and  by  reason  of  them,  words  are  born  and 
grow  and  die. 

New  words  are  born  every  day;  or  rather,  new  ideas  are 
born  with  every  discovery,  every  invention,  every  new  mode 
of  thought,  and  new  words  are  found  to  christen  them. 
Radium,  pragmatism,  hydroplane  are  twentieth  century  words; 
camouflage  was  born  since  the  War  began.  Almost  every 
issue  of  a  big  newspaper  contains  one  or  more  new  words. 
The  rate  at  which  new  words  are  created  depends  upon  the 
mental  activity  of  a  nation.  The  War  has  enormously  en- 
riched our  vocabulary. 

Words  come  into  existence  because  there  is  need  of  them 
to  express  an  idea.  If  the  idea  is  soon  forgotten,  or  if  the 
255 


256  THE  WRITING  OF  ENGLISH 

word  is  so  badly  formed  as  to  be  a  caricature,  the  word  is 
short-lived.  Enthuse  has  struggled  hard  for  existence  because 
there  is  real  need  to  express  its  idea;  but  the  word  itself  is 
so  misshapen  that  the  world  is  apparently  leaving  it  to  die. 

A  good,  natural  word,  however,  whether  it  is  created  by 
scholars  or  comes  up,  no  one  knows  how,  among  the  people, 
will  have  a  healthy  life  as  long  as  the  idea  which  it  represents 
is  in  existence,  and  as  long  as  no  better  word  for  the  same 
idea  fights  and  overcomes  it.  Numberless  words  have  lived 
and  died  and  been  forgotten  in  these  ways;  and  there  are 
still  many  decrepit  words  that  have  survived  from  the 
Middle  Ages  which  we  now  understand  dimly  if  at  all.  For 
instance,  we  know  that  a  jupon  was  a  sort  of  mediaeval 
sweater,  but  opinions  differ  as  to  whether  it  was  worn  over 
or  under  the  coat-of-mail.  "  Grow-green  as  the  grass  " — what 
does  it  mean?  We  can  only  guess. 

But  in  the  course  of  their  lives  words  grow  and  change  in 
meaning  until  in  many  cases  we  can  scarcely  see  that  "the 
child  is  father  to  the  man."  The  word  handkerchief  even  has 
a  second  childhood.  A  kerchief  was  a  cover-head  (chief  we 
still  use  figuratively  as  head)',  a  handkerchief  was  a  head- 
cover  carried  in  the  hand;  and  now  again,  in  countries  where 
negro  women  wear  head-coverings,  they  use  handkerchiefs 
for  the  purpose. 

Many  words  begin  life  as  figures  of  speech,  particularly 
the  figures  synecdoche,  metonymy,  and  metaphor. 

SYNECDOCHE  involves  a  transfer  to  one  idea  of  a  word  ap- 
plied originally  to  another  related  to  it,  as: 

Genus  for  species:  gun  for  pistol  or  cannon; 

Species  for  genus:  vendetta  for  feud;  jitney  (jocosely)  for 
any  automobile; 

Singular  for  plural:  horse  for  cavalry — horsemen; 

Part  for  the  whole:  roof — meaning  house; 

Whole  for  the  part :  New  York  for  the  financiers  of  Wall 
Street; 


THE  VALUES  OF  WORDS  257 

Common  noun  for  proper:  The  Narrows — a  particular 
strait; 

Proper  noun  for  common:  Academy  =  &  grove  near  Athens 
where  philosophers  met  for  discussion;  now  a  kind  of  school, 
and  also  an  association  of  learned  men. 

METONYMY  also  leads  to  the  substitution  of  a  word  that 
expresses  a  related  idea,  as: 

Effect  for  cause:  disease  =  dis-ease,  lack  of  ease,  for  which 
illness  is  the  cause; 

Cause  for  effect:  style,  effect  of  writing  with  a  style-pen; 

Container  for  contents:  bottle,  as  in  "He  loves  the 
bottle;" 

Material  for  the  thing  made  of  it:  household  linen,  for 
sheets,  tablecloths,  etc.; 

Place  name  for  a  product  made  at  the  place:  arras,  china, 
damask; 

Name  of  person  for  something  first  associated  with  him: 
mackintosh,  boycott,  volt,  ampere,  galvanize,  roquelaure; 

Abstract  for  concrete:  royalty  for  king;  honor  for  mayor; 

Concrete  for  abstract:  the  Church  (the  organization);  the 
Stage  (the  profession  of  acting) ; 

Symbol  for  idea  symbolized:  Cross  for  Christianity; 

Physical  organ  for  quality  or  faculty  associated  with  it: 
kind  heart;  weak  brain. 

METAPHOR  is  the  process  by  which  two  apparently  different 
things  are  identified  because  of  some  principle  of  likeness  dis- 
covered in  them,  as: 

Two  concrete  things :  leg  of  a  table,  wing  of  a  building,  eye 
of  a  needle; 

Some  moral  or  intellectual  idea  and  a  material  thing: 
balance  of  trade;  He  is  thin-skinned — meaning  sensitive;  in 
hazard — meaning  originally  a  certain  space  in  the  game  of 
tennis. 

Now  each  of  these  transferences  extends  the  meaning  of 
a  word ;  and  this  extension  takes  place  according  to  two  very 


258  THE  WRITING  OF  ENGLISH 

different  processes,  which  are,  however,  usually  found  working 
together. 

The  first  is  called  radiation,  that  is,  spreading  from  a  com- 
mon center.  In  this  process  the  original  meaning  is  not 
forgotten;  it  is  simply  applied  to  one  thing  after  another.  For 
instance,  the  word  cross  has  many  meanings  to-day  which 
are  built  upon  the  common  idea  of  one  thing  crossing  another. 

The  other  process  is  called  concatenation,  or  chaining  to- 
gether. In  this,  the  word  loses  its  original  meaning  when  it 
has  passed  on  to  the  second;  its  second  when  it  attains  a 
third,  and  so  on.  For  instance,  the  original  idea  of  cross — 
two  pieces  of  wood  crossed — has  been  lost  in  cross  meaning 
a  burden.  Again,  the  word  pioneer  meant  originally  foot- 
soldier;  and  even  in  Shakespeare's  time  it  meant  military 
engineer;  this  meaning  has  been  entirely  lost  in  the  sense 
"  one  who  opens  up  new  country,  or,  figuratively,  new  lines 
of  thought." 

These  two  processes  working  together  have  the  most  ex- 
traordinary effects  upon  the  history  of  words.  From  genera- 
tion to  generation  we  find  words  going  up  and  down  in  life, 
becoming  aristocratic  or  vulgar,  unexceptionable  or  disrep- 
utable. The  word  genteel,  once  a  compliment,  is  now  almost 
an  insult.  Churl,  villain,  and  boor,  all  originally  meant  merely 
countrymen.  A  knave  was  simply  a  boy;  a  caitiff  was  a  prisoner 
of  war;  a  rascal,  a  lean  deer.  On  the  other  hand,  many 
scientific  terms,  particularly  physiological,  which  would 
have  been  unmentionable  in  Queen  Victoria's  time,  are  now 
commonplaces.  Mr.  Bernard  Shaw's  Pygmalion  is  an  amus- 
ing comedy  built  up  about  the  indiscreet  utterance  of  a  word 
of  obscure  origin  which  has  always  been  taboo  in  British 
society,  because  it  is  commonly  used  in  swearing  by  the  most 
vulgar  people,  although  no  one  knows  clearly  its  origin  or 
its  present  meaning. 

Although  the  English  language  possesses  more  than 
400,000  words,  it  would  be  impossible  to  find  two  that  are 


THE  VALUES  OF  WORDS  259 

exactly  the  same  in  value,  however  near  they  may  approach 
each  other  in  meaning.  They  may  descend  from  the  same 
ancestor  as  sure,  secure;  fragile,  frail;  dignity,  dainty;  curb, 
curve;  tavern,  tabernacle;  but  they  have  grown  so  far  apart 
that  they  no  longer  have  the  same  meanings. 

They  may  have  different  ancestors,  and  yet  seem  at  first 
glance  identical  in  meaning,  as  assure,  affirm,  certify,  aver, 
asseverate,  protest;  but  a  little  work  with  the  dictionary  shows 
that  each  has  its  own  place  and  its  own  associates. 

They  may  seem  to  be  derived  from  equivalent  ancestors  in 
different  languages;  but  when  you  put  them  together,  their 
meanings  are  seen  to  be  wide  apart,  thus:  wretch  and  miser; 
fight  and  debate;  nightly  and  nocturnal;  run  across  and  occur; 
solar  and  sunny;  town  and  villa. 

The  good  writer  cultivates  words  and  cherishes  them;  he 
knows  that  he  cannot  have  too  many.  He  may  at  any  mo- 
ment need  one  more  than  he  has.  Barrie  in  his  Sentimental 
Tommy  tells  how  Tommy — who  was  to  become  a  literary 
genius — lost  a  prize  for  a  composition  because  he  failed  to 
finish  his  paper;  and  he  failed  to  finish  his  paper  because  he 
stopped  to  find  the  only  word  for  "a  certain  considerable 
number  of  people."  Afterward  it  came  to  him:  a  hantle  of 
folk. 

The  most  important  source  of  words  for  a  writer  is  his 
own  life.  If  you  would  write  well,  you  must  establish  a 
vital  connection  between  what  you  say  and  how  you  live. 
Your  words  must  grow  out  of  the  technique  of  your  trade, 
the  terms  of  your  profession,  the  natural  features  of  your 
environment,  the  idiom  of  your  neighbors,  the  intimacies  of 
your  home  life,  the  idiosyncrasies  of  your  temperament. 
All  your  figures  of  speech,  for  example,  if  they  are  drawn  from 
these  sources,  will  have  the  force  that  firsthand  association 
with  the  thing  itself  always  gives  to  language.  If  you  try 
to  get  away  from  the  reality  of  your  own  experience,  on  the 
ground  that  it  is  commonplace — not  "literary"  enough — 


260  THE  WRITING  OF  ENGLISH 

you  immediately  deal  with  things  at  secondhand  and  be- 
come less  effective. 

No  experience,  however,  is  sufficient  to  acquaint  you  with 
more  than  a  small  part  of  the  words  that  you  must  use.  Con- 
sequently, you  must  supplement  from  the  experience  of 
others  as  you  hear  it  told  by  the  people  whom  you  meet,  and 
as  you  read  it  in  books.  From  the  people  whom  you  meet 
you  will  get  both  good  and  bad,  in  so  far  as  they  vary  in 
their  control  over  language;  but  from  books,  if  you  choose 
to  read  only  such  as  are  written  with  full  realization  of  the 
value  of  words,  you  will  get  nothing  but  good.  Wide  and 
critical  reading  of  such  books  not  only  introduces  you  con- 
tinually to  new  words  out  of  your  own  range,  but  reveals 
all  sorts  of  unsuspected  meanings  in  single  words,  and  values 
due  to  the  association  of  words  in  phrasing. 

Now  if  you  attempt  on  the  basis  of  reading  alone  to  use 
these  words  yourself,  you  will  be  doing  the  very  thing  that 
leads  to  false  fine  writing;  you  will  be  using  words  that  to 
you  are  purely  literary.  To  avoid  doing  this,  you  must  make 
them  your  own  before  you  attempt  to  use  them.  This  you 
can  do  in  two  ways:  (1)  by  studying  them — not  merely 
looking  them  up — in  a  good  dictionary,  until  you  feel  that, 
you  know  their  implications  and  suggestive  value;  and  (2)  by 
adopting  them  into  your  own  family  of  familiar  words  and 
trying  them  out — seeing  how  they  get  along  together.  In 
this  way  you  will  assimilate  one  after  another  until  your 
range  may  grow  from  a  thousand,  more  or  less,  up  to  four 
or  five  thousand.  This  is  small  enough  in  view  of  the  enor- 
mous number  of  words  at  our  disposal. 

To  give  your  words  the  power  of  stimulating  the  mental 
processes  of  others  as  your  own  processes  have  been  stim- 
ulated by  what  you  are  trying  to  express,  you  must,  naturally, 
find  in  each  instance,  the  word  that  will  most  perfectly  sug- 
gest your  impression  or  idea.  Your  first  step  must  be  to  de- 
fine to  yourself  as  sharply  as  possible  your  idea  and  impres- 


THE  VALUES  OF  WORDS  261 

sion;  and  this  definition  comes  only  in  the  process  of  running 
over  a  list  of  words  that  almost  serve  the  purpose  until  with 
a  flash  of  recognition  you  pounce  upon  the  right  one.  The 
difficulty  with  most  people  lies  not  in  being  unable  to 
recognize  what  they  want,  so  much  as  in  being  too  lim- 
ited in  vocabulary  for  the  word  to  come  without  much 
questing,  and  in  not  taking  time  and  trouble  to  push  the 
search  to  the  end.  They  say  "a  number"  instead  of  "a 
hantle." 

Suppose,  for  example,  you  wish  to  describe  a  light.  The 
happy-go-lucky  writer  will  say  "a  bright  light,"  which  may 
come  from  the  moon,  a  conflagration,  a  street  lamp,  an  auto- 
mobile. As  you  look  at  it,  you  try  to  define  its  quality  to 
yourself.  Is  it  glittering?  glimmering?  glowing?  flaming? 
glaring?  fiery?  blazing?  luminous?  lustrous?  gleaming?  daz- 
zling? flickering?  blinding?  brilliant?  glistening?  shining? 
burning?  radiant?  glistering?  yellow?  sulphurous?  sparkling? 
Can  you  extend  the  list? 

Again,  what  is  the  light?  A  glow?  a  glimmer?  a  gleam?  a 
ray?  a  shaft?  a  brilliancy?  a  radiance?  a  sheen?  a  fire?  a  con- 
flagration? a  blaze?  a  flare?  a  glitter?  a  flame?  a  luster? — 
Can  you  extend  this  list? 

When  Poe  wished  to  use  light  in  accumulating  the  horrors 
in  The  Pit  and  the  Pendulum,  he  defined  the  glimmer  in  the 
dungeon  as  a  "sulphurous  luster."  Compare  the  impression 
that  it  gives  you  with  that  which  you  derive  from  "mellow 
radiance";  "luminous  glow,"  or  any  other  combination  of 
the  listed  nouns  and  adjectives. 

In  the  opening  to  Under  the  Greenwood  Tree,  Hardy  dis- 
tinguishes the  sounds  of  four  different  trees  thus : 

To  dwellers  in  a  wood  almost  every  species  of  tree  has  its  voice  as 
well  as  its  feature.  At  the  passing  of  the  breeze  the  fir-trees  moan 
and  sob  no  less  than  they  rock;  the  holly  whistles  as  it  battles  with 
itself;  the  ash  hisses  amid  its  quiverings;  the  beech  rustles  while  its 
flat  boughs  rise  and  fall. 


262  THE  WRITING  OF  ENGLISH 

So  for  every  impression  and  every  idea  clear-cut  thinking 
and  careful  search  reveal  the  right  word. 

In  bad  company,  however,  the  effect  of  the  right  word  is 
lost;  that  is,  phrasing  is  all-important.  The  literal  sum  of 
two  words  is  always  two;  but  their  suggestive  value  may  be 
two,  or  twenty,  or  a  hundred.  Take,  for  instance,  Kipling's 
phrasing  used  to  describe  the  beginning  of  a  flood : 

In  the  silence,  men  heard  the  dry  yawn  of  water  crawling  over 
thirsty  sand. 

Every  word  in  the  sentence  is  common,  even  commonplace; 
but  taken  together,  they  make  us  feel  both  the  drought  that 
preceded  the  flood,  and  the  low  noise  that  the  Ganges  made 
as  it  slowly  crawled  up  the  banks  like  one  of  its  own  croc- 
odiles. 

The  gift  of  combining  common  words  into  a  group  which 
is  not  the  sum  total  of  so  many  words,  but  the  source  of  a 
vigorous  and  striking  unified  impression  different  from  the 
mere  sum  of  the  meanings  of  the  simple  words,  varies  widely 
in  writers.  While  phrasing  is  not  altogether  a  talent  that  can 
be  acquired,  the  effort  to  find  fresh  and  true  word  combina- 
tions for  every  idea  leads  in  time  to  considerable  power  of 
suggestion. 

The  first  rule  for  phrases  is:  Make  your  own. 

The  second  is:  Make  them  out  of  your  own  experience. 

The  third  is:  Focus  your  attention  on  the  idea;  and  the 
words  will  come.  Never  use  words  because  they  come  easily, 
or  look  well,  or  sound  well;  but  only  because  they  absolutely 
fit  your  idea. 

Particularly  to  be  avoided  are  the  worn-out  phrases  with 
which  the  speech  of  half -educated  people  is  crowded.  They 
do  not  trust  their  own  efforts  in  phrase-making,  but  use 
phrases  which  they  have  heard  on  the  lips  of  others.  Many 
of  these  phrases  come  from  much-admired  and  frequently- 
quoted  poetry;  others  are  proverbial.  But  however  they 
arise,  as  soon  as  they  become  current  coin  of  speech,  they 


THE  VALUES  OF  WORDS  263 

grow  worn  and  dull.  The  use  of  them  is  fatal  to  good  writing 
because  they  induce  laziness  in  attempting  to  take  over, 
ready-made,  what  should  be  expressed  for  one's  self. 

It  is  a  good  plan,  when  you  are  in  doubt  about  a  phrase 
that  sounds  familiar,  to  look  it  up  in  Bartlett's  Familiar  Quo- 
tations. If  you  find  it,  throw  it  away  and  make  one  of  your 
own.  You  will  find  in  Appendix  VIII,  §388,  a  list  of  some 
some  of  the  commonest  abuses  of  this  kind;  but  they  are  legion. 

In  effective  phrasing,  figures  are  of  great  service,  provided 
that  they  are  not  ornamental,  but  structural;  that  is,  pro- 
vided that  your  thought  grows  figurative  without  conscious 
effort.  If  a  figure  is  deliberately  added  as  an  afterthought, 
it  is  almost  sure  to  be  an  excrescence.  If  it  is  right,  you  will 
find  it  in  the  sentence  before  you  are  aware.  Moreover,  the 
chances  are  that  it  will  be  (1)  a  short  metaphor,  (2)  a  short 
simile  (expressed  comparison  introduced  by  like  or  as), 
(3)  metonymy,  or  (4)  onomatopreia  (expression  of  sense  by 
sound,  as  purr,  rustle,  gibber,  clang). 

Again,  you  will  find,  if  your  figure  has  come  naturally,  that 
it  is  closely  associated  with  your  life-experience,  very,  of  ten 
with  universal  experience.  The  following  figures  are  inter- 
esting partly  because  of  their  freshness  and  partly  because 
of  their  appeal  to  common  experience: 

One  moment  you'd  see  a  block  of  houses.  The  next  thing  there 
was  a  new  street  down  the  middle  of  them.  A  shell  had  cut  it  clean 
out.  Then  the  next  shell  would  strip  a  series  of  roofs  and  send  them 
flying  like  papers  in  a  storm.  The  next  again  would  buckle  all  the 
gables  together  like  a  concertina. — John  C.  McElween. 

Remember  that  it  is  better  to  use  too  few  figures  than  too 
many,  and  that  mixed  figures  make  many  a  serious  passage 
absurd.  They  are  often  used  for  humorous  effect  as,  for  in- 
stance, in  the  following  sentence  from  O.  Henry: 

Let  me  tell  you  first  about  these  barnacles  that  clog  the  wheels  of 
society  by  poisoning  the  springs  of  rectitude  with  their  upas-like 
eye.  .  .  . 


264  THE  WRITING  OF  ENGLISH 

If  you  try  to  image  each  phase  of  this  sentence,  you  will  see 
its  absurdity  at  once.  Guard  against  mixing  your  figures 
except  for  such  a  purpose  as  this. 

You  have  already  studied  some  ways  of  securing  economy 
in  the  sentence.  As  a  rule,  it  is  safe  to  let  a  single  word  do 
all  the  work  it  can.  Do  not  use  an  adverb  if  a  verb  can  be 
made  to  contain  the  idea  of  the  adverb  as  well:  rushed  is 
stronger  than  ran  swiftly;  leaves  flickered  is  more  delicate 
than  leaves  moved  a  little.  So,  also,  if  the  noun  can  be  made 
to  express  or  imply  the  meaning  of  the  adjective,  it  should 
do  so,  and  the  adjective  be  reserved  for  cases  of  real  modifica- 
tion: green  grass  is  no  better  than  grass;  but  in  emerald  grass, 
sodden  grass,  rusty-brown  grass,  the  adjective  is  of  real  use. 
In  general,  the  tendency  to-day,  is  to  lean  heavily  upon  the 
verb  of  action  in  its  various  forms  for  imagery  as  well  as  for 
predication.  The  effect  of  this  is  that  our  writing  is  more 
dynamic  than  that  of  a  generation  ago.  Our  pictures  move 
even  when  the  subjects  are  nearly  static,  as  in  this  bit  from 
Stevenson: 

Clouds  coursed  over  the  sky  in  great  masses :  the  full  moon  battled 
the  other  way,  and  lit  up  the  snow  with  gleams  of  flying  silver;  the 
town  came  dawn  the  hill  in  a  cascade  of  brown  gables,  bestridden  by 
smooth  white  roofs,  and  spangled  here  and  there  with  lighted  win- 
dows. 

The  work  of  Conrad  and  of  Kipling  is  also  full  of  this  dynamic 
quality;  see  the  passages  quoted  on  pp.  58,  65,  186. 

And  finally,  if  the  requirements  of  meaning  are  satisfied  by 
more  than  one  word,  choice  will  be  determined  by  the  rhythm 
and  sound  of  the  sentence  and  of  the  paragraph,  which  will 
establish  the  Tightness  of  a  long  word  or  a  short  word,  of  a 
Latin  word  or  a  word  from  Anglo-Saxon,  of  a  word  heavy 
with  consonants  or  purely  vocalic.  The  habit  of  reading 
aloud  and  listening  as  you  read  is  the  best  single  aid  to  judg- 
ment in  such  a  case,  particularly  if  the  ear  has  been  trained 
by  practice  in  reading  aloud  the  work  of  good  writers. 


THE  VALUES  OF  WORDS  265 

By  way  of  practice  in  observing  how  the  sound  of  words 
helps  to  determine  choice,  read  aloud  several  times  the  fol- 
lowing extract  from  Walter  Pater,  which  while  it  is  written 
on  this  very  subject,  also  exemplifies  admirably  the  theory 
that  it  presents.  Try  substituting  synonyms  for  various 
words,  and  see  what  happens  to  your  prose: 

The  one  word  for  the  one  thing,  the  one  thought  amid  the  multi- 
tude of  words,  terms,  that  might  just  do:  the  problem  of  style  was 
there! — the  unique  word,  phrase,  sentence,  paragraph,  essay,  or 
song,  absolutely  proper  to  the  single  mental  presentation  or  vision 
within.  In  that  perfect  justice,  over  and  above  the  many  contingent 
and  removable  beauties  with  which  beautiful  style  may  charm  us, 
but  which  it  can  exist  without,  independent  of  them  yet  dexterously 
availing  itself  of  them,  omnipresent  in  good  work,  in  function  at 
every  point,  from  single  epithets  to  the  rhythm  of  a  whole  book, 
lay  the  specific,  indispensable,  very  intellectual  beauty  of  literature, 
the  possibility  of  which  constitutes  it  a  fine  art. 

For  further  practice  of  this  kind,  the  following  prose  is 
suggested:  Pater's  The  Child  intheHouse^uskin's  descrip- 
tion of  St.  Mark's  from  The  Stones  of  Venice;  Matthew  Ar- 
nold's Sweetness  and  Light,  from  Culture  and  Anarchy.  You 
will  find  them  in  Manly 's  English  Prose  and  Poetry,  and  also — 
or  passages  very  similar — in  all  the  chief  collections  of  Eng- 
lish prose. 

If  you  are  interested  in  the  history  of  words,  the  following 
books  will  prove  good  reading: 

Greenough,  J.  B.,  and  Kittredge,  G.  L.,  Words  and  their 
Ways  in  English  Speech. 

Bradley,  Henry,  The  Making  of  English. 

Jespersen,  Otto,  The  Structure  and  Growth  of  the  English 
Language. 

Darmesteter,  J.,  The  Life  of  Words. 

ASSIGNMENT 

1.  Test  your  range  of  color  distinctions  by  listing  all  the  shades 
of  green  that  you  can  think  of;  of  red;  of  purple;  of  yellow;  of  blue; 
of  black;  of  white.  While  you  are  doing  this,  note  and  bring  to 


266  THE  WRITING  OF  ENGLISH 

class  for  discussion  any  passages  in  which  you  observe  particular 
accuracy  and  suggestiveness  in  the  use  of  color  words. 

2.  Find  things  to  which  each  of  the  following  adjectives  may  be 
suitably  applied:  big,  large,  tall,  high,  huge,  immense,  bulky,  enor- 
mous, gigantic,  titanic,  colossal,  and  any  other  words  denoting  size 
that  occur  to  you. 

3.  What  image,  if  any,  presents  itself  to  you  with  each  of  the 
following  words:  slimy;  matted;  flabby;  flimsy;  gritty;  moist;  furry; 
musty;  scraggy? 

4.  Make  as  long  a  list  as  you  can  of  onomatopoetic  words,  such 
as  squash,  squelch,  etc.    Quote  any  passages  that  you  find  in  which 
they  are  used  effectively. 

5.  With  a  dictionary  establish  a  connection  between  the  following 
groups  of  words:  sole,  solitary,  sullen;  thrill,  nostril;  pathos,  passion, 
passive;  hussy,  husband. 

6.  Write  a  300-word  paper  on  the  origin  of  names  of  furniture;  or 
of  articles  of  dress;  or  of  precious  stones;  or  of  vehicles;  or  on  words 
that  have  come  down  in  the  world. 

7.  Find  the  Anglo-Saxon  equivalent  for  each  of  the  following 
words  and  explain  the  differences  in  value:  vivacious;  identical; 
edifice;  annihilate;  rigid;  eccentric;  emaciated;  corpulent;  endeavor; 
commence;  fragment;  mendacious;  acute;  drama;  instruct;  vera- 
cious; transgression;  tribulation;  prevarication;  reticulation;  mor- 
bid; osseous. 

8.  Explain  the  origin  of  the  figures  in  the  following:  bias;  bowl 
over;  parry;  thrust;  fence;  hazard;  crestfallen;  bandy;  run  counter; 
lose  track  of;  hit  or  miss;  within  an  ace  of;  disaster;  aspect;  pre- 
dominant; influence;  humorous. 

9.  Write  a  paper  of  300  words  on  common  words  derived  from 
names.    You  may  use  the  following  to  begin  with;  extend  the  list 
as  much  as  you  can:  cereal;  phaeton;  epicurean;  stoical;  sardonic; 
tantalize;  cyclopean;  jovial;  mercurial;  hector;  saturnine;  colossal. 

10.  Study  the  following  quotations  for  their  suggestive  phrasing; 
use  the  dictionary  for  the  italicized  words,  and  analyze  with  special 
care  the  italicized  phrases: 

"There  is  one  day  when  all  things  are  tired,  and  the  very  smells, 
as  they  drift  on  the  heavy  air,  are  old  and  used.  One  cannot  ex- 
plain this,  but  it  feels  so.  Then  there  is  another  day — to  the  eye 
nothing  whatever  has  changed — when  all  the  smells  are  new  and 
delightful,  and  the  whiskers  of  the  Jungle  People  quiver  to  their 
roots,  and  winter  hair  comes  away  from  their  sides  in  long,  draggled 
locks.  Then  perhaps  a  little  rain  falls,  and  all  the  trees  and  the 


THE  VALUES  OF  WORDS  267 

bushes  and  the  bamboos  and  the  mosses  and  the  juicy-leaved  plants 
wake  with  a  noise  of  growing  that  you  can  almost  hear,  and  under 
this  noise  runs,  day  and  night,  a  deep  hum.  That  is  the  noise  of 
the  spring — a  vibrating  boom  which  is  neither  bees  nor  falling 
water,  nor  the  wind  in  the  tree-tops,  but  the  purring  of  the  warm, 
happy  world" — Kipling. 

"The  cemetery  of  St.  John  had  taken  its  own  share  of  the  snow. 
All  the  graves  were  decently  covered;  tall  white  housetops  stood 
around  in  grave  array;  worthy  burghers  were  long  ago  in  bed, 
benightcapped  like  their  domiciles;  there  was  no  light  in  all  the 
neighborhood  but  a  little  peep  from  a  lamp  that  hung  swinging  in 
the  church  choir,  and  tossed  the  shadows  to  and  fro  in  time  to  its 
oscillations.  The  clock  was  hard  on  ten  when  the  patrol  went  by 
with  halberds  and  a  lantern,  beating  their  hands;  and  they  saw 
nothing  suspicious  about  the  cemetery  of  St.  John." — Stevenson. 

"A  great  silent  bird,  with  soft  brown  plumage,  whirred  across 
our  path,  pausing  an  instant  as  though  to  peep,  then  disappearing 
with  a  muted  sound  into  an  eddy  of  the  wind  it  made.  The  big 
trees  hid  it.  It  was  an  owl.  The  same  moment  I  heard  a  rush  of 
liquid  song  come  pouring  through  the  forest  with  a  gush  of  almost 
human  notes,  and  a  pair  of  glossy  wings  flashed  past  us,  swerving 
upwards  to  find  the  open  sky — blue-black,  pointed  wings" 

— Algernon  Blackwood. 

"Houses  frowning,  machiolated  and  sombre,  or  gay  and  golden- 
white  with  cool  green  jalousies  and  spreading  eaves,  stretch  before 
you  through  mellow  air  to  a  distance  where  they  melt  into  hills, 
and  hills  into  sky;  into  sky  so  clear  and  rarely  blue,  so  virgin  pale 
at  the  horizon,  that  the  hills  sleep  brown  upon  it  under  the  sun, 
and  the  cypresses,  nodding  a-row,  seem  funeral  weeds  beside  that 
radiant  purity.  Some  such  adorable  stretch  of  tilth  and  pasture, 
sky  and  cloud,  hangs  like  a  god's  crown  beyond  the  city  and  her 
towers.  In  the  long  autumn  twilight  Fiesole  and  the  hills  lie  soft 
and  purple  below  a  pale  green  sky.  There  is  a  pause  at  this  time 
when  the  air  seems  washed  for  sleep — every  shrub,  every  feature 
of  the  landscape  is  cut  clean  as  with  a  blade.  The  light  dies,  the 
air  deepens  to  wet  violet,  and  the  glimpses  of  the  hill-town  gleam 
like  snow." — Maurice  Hewlett. 


CHAPTER  XIV 
IMAGINATION 

IMAGINATION  is  constructive  power  in  life  as  well  as  in  art. 
It  evolves  theories,  paints  pictures,  shapes  statues,  builds 
houses,  invents  machines,  writes  books,  creates  big  business, 
and  brings  harmony  and  vitality  into  the  daily  routine  of 
living.  It  works  among  the  common  things  by  which  men 
have  always  been  surrounded  and  out  of  them  makes  some- 
thing new  which  helps  them  to  a  wider  view  and  a  deeper 
understanding  of  life.  Without  imagination  there  could  be 
no  progress,  because  without  imagination  men  could  not 
create. 

In  regard  to  imagination  there  are  several  facts  which 
are  not  always  understood.  For  one  thing,  it  is  intimately 
associated  with  personality,  and  varies  in  every  individual. 
The  painter,  for  example,  creates  on  the  basis  of  what  his 
eyes  show  him;  the  musician,  on  the  basis  of  what  he  hears. 
As  the  inventor  and  the  theorist  have,  so  to  speak,  imagina- 
tion of  the  reason,  so  the  business  man  has  imagination  of 
the  practical  sense.  Again,  imagination,  unlike  fancy — 
which  has  the  Munchausen  habit  of  heaping  up  absurdities 
or  unrealities  for  the  mere  pleasure  of  the  process — builds 
with  its  foundations  on  truth;  it  always  bears  a  definite  and 
recognizable,  though  variable,  relationship  to  reality.  Like  a 
mason  or  a  mechanic,  it  builds  in  accordance  with  its  own 
laws.  And  finally,  it  is  not  the  endowment  of  the  few  only 
whose  names  are  remembered  for  great  works;  but  it  is 
shared  by  millions  who  make  little  or  no  use  of  it,  partly 
because  they  are  unaware  that  they  have  it,  and  partly 
because  they  lack  the  technique  which  is  necessary  for  its 
268 


IMAGINATION  269 

expression.  It  is  probable  that  every  normal  mind  has 
imagination  enough  to  achieve  more  than  it  even  dreams  of 
undertaking. 

However,  it  is  not  with  the  development  of  imagination 
in  practical  life  that  we  are  here  concerned;  our  problem  is 
to  show  how  it  manifests  itself  in  writing,  and  in  so  doing  to 
suggest  how  it  may  be  cultivated. 

When  Lewis  Carroll  wrote  Through  the  Looking-Glass,  he 
began  with  the  idea  of  reversing  life  as  writing  is  reversed 
when  seen  in  a  mirror.  When  Alice  jumps  into  the  glass,  she 
arrives  in  a  land  where  she  floats  as  she  tries  to  go  downstairs, 
has  to  run  hard  in  order  to  stand  still,  eats  dry  biscuit  to 
quench  thirst,  and  walks  away  from  the  thing  that  she  tries 
to  reach.  So  far  Carroll  deals  imaginatively  with  life  by 
merely  reversing  its  usual  laws.  When  he  introduces  his 
nonsense — such  as,  for  example,  "The  Walrus  and  the  Car- 
penter" and  the  "Jabberwock" — he  breaks  away  from  life 
altogether,  and  lets  his  fancy  play  as  it  will.  In  literature 
imagination  is  the  re-creation  of  life  according  to  definite 
laws;  fancy  is  the  creation  of  a  semblance  of  life  according  to 
no  law  but  that  of  mere  whim  or  chance  association. 

The  working  of  law  in  imaginative  writing  is  seen  carried 
out  in  astonishing  detail  in  Swift's  Gulliver's  Travels.  In  the 
Voyage  to  Lilliput,  his  principle  was  to  show  the  pettiness 
of  mankind  by  representing  men  one-twelfth  the  size  of  the 
human  race.  To  do  this,  he  was  forced  to  work  out  a  most 
elaborate  reduction  in  scale  in  all  aspects  of  life.  Joints  of 
meat  were  "smaller  than  the  wings  of  a  lark";  Gulliver  ate 
two  and  three  at  a  mouthful,  and  three  loaves  of  bread  at  a 
time.  The  largest  man-of-war  was  nine  feet  long,  and  the 
tallest  temple  was  "at  least  five  feet  high."  The  Emperor 
was  taller  by  almost  the  breadth  of  Gulliver's  nail  than  any 
of  his  Court;  and  Gulliver  could  pick  up  six  Lilliputians  at 
once  in  his  hand. 

Then  Swift  reverses  the  process,  and  shows  how  big  Gul- 


270  THE  WRITING  OF  ENGLISH 

liver  looked  to  the  Lilliputians.  His  handkerchief  was  large 
enough  to  be  a  rug  in  a  room  of  state;  his  snuffbox  was  a 
"huge  silver  chest"  into  which  one  of  the  Lilliputians  stepped 
knee-deep  in  snuff;  his  comb  was  "a  sort  of  engine,  from  the 
back  of  which  were  extended  twenty  long  poles,  resembling 
the  palisadoes"  at  the  Lilliputian  Court;  his  watch  "made 
an  incessant  noise,  like  that  of  a  water-mill,"  and  so  on. 

As  a  natural  pendant  to  the  Lilliput  story  Swift  in- 
vented Gulliver's  adventures  in  Brobdingnag,  where  the 
people  are  sixty  feet,  instead  of  six  inches,  in  height.  When 
Gulliver  sees  a  Brodingnagian  coming  toward  him  "ten  yards 
at  every  stride,"  he  utters  a  reflection  in  which  appears 
Swift's  purpose  underlying  these  changes  in  the  human 
scale: 

In  this  terrible  agitation  of  mind  I  could  not  forbear  thinking  of 
Lilliput,  whose  inhabitants  looked  upon  me  as  the  greatest  prodigy 
that  ever  appeared  in  the  world;  where  I  was  able  to  draw  an  im- 
perial fleet  in  my  hand,  and  perform  those  other  actions  which  will 
be  recorded  forever  in  the  chronicles  of  that  empire,  while  posterity 
shall  hardly  believe  them,  although  attested  by  millions.  I  reflected 
what  a  mortification  it  must  prove  to  me  to  appear  as  inconsiderable 
in  this  nation  as  one  single  Lilliputian  would  be  among  us. 

This  means,  of  course,  that  we  have  no  standard  by  which  to 
measure  the  absolute  value  of  any  aspect  of  human  life. 

As  the  story  proceeds,  we  read  that  the  Brobdingnagians 
regard  Gulliver  at  first  as  if  he  were  "a  small  dangerous 
animal,"  and  that  his  gold  coins  are  almost  invisibly  small. 
At  the  farmhouse,  Gulliver  walking  across  the  dinner  table 
stumbles  against  a  crust  and  falls  flat;  he  lives  in  fear  of  a  cat 
which  purrs  with  a  sound  as  great  as  "  that  of  a  dozen  stocking 
weavers  at  work,"  and  of  the  farm  dogs,  one  of  which  is 
"equal  in  bulk  to  four  elephants";  he  narrowly  escapes 
having  his  head  bitten  off  by  the  baby;  and  he  has  a  fierce 
encounter  with  two  rats  as  large  as  mastiffs. 

In  all  this  elaboration  of  life  according  to  different  scales, 
Swift  had  an  avowed  purpose,  which  was  to  "help  a  philos- 


IMAGINATION  271 

opher  to  enlarge  his  thoughts  and  imagination,  and  apply 
them  to  the  benefit  of  public  as  well  as  private  life." 

In  other  words,  Swift  applies  his  imagination  with  almost 
mathematical  precision  first  to  the  reduction  and  then  to 
the  exaggeration  of  life — as  if  it  were  seen  first  through  a 
reversed  telescope  and  then  through  a  microscope — in  order 
to  stir  men  to  ponder  upon  its  values. 

Both  the  Gulliver  and  the  Alice  books  are  in  a  sense 
freakish  products  of  the  imagination;  but  both  are  made  to 
grow  from  a  solid  foundation  of  experience:  Alice  gets  away 
from  reality  through  dreams,  and  Gulliver  by  wandering  in 
parts  of  the  world  about  which  in  Swift's  time  little  was 
known.  So  Samuel  Butler,  only  about  fifty  years  ago,  was 
able  to  place  Erehwon  (Nowhere) — where  modern  ideas  of 
civilization  are  reversed — on  the  other  side  of  a  high  moun- 
tain ridge  on  an  island  in  Australasia;  W.  H.  Hudson,  in 
Green  Mansions,  was  able  to  imagine  a  bird  woman  as  living 
near  the  unexplored  sources  of  the  Orinoco;  and  Algernon 
Blackwood,  in  this  present  century,  uses  psychology  as  a 
basis  for  as  wild  ghost  stories  as  ever  were  written. 

Imagination  builds  always  upon  fact;  very  often  when  it 
is  most  successful,  upon  the  commonplaces  of  life.  But  it 
immediately  proceeds  to  combine  these  into  new  patterns 
which  bear  the  imprint  of  their  creator's  personality.  And 
this  it  is  which  distinguishes  the  work  of  imagination  from 
the  realistic  and  impersonal  representation  of  things  as  they 
seem  to  the  majority  of  people.  The  difference  may  be 
likened  to  that  between  a  portrait  by  a  master  in  which  his 
own  personality  is  as  clearly  visible  to  the  seeing  eye  as  the 
personality  of  the  subject,  and  a  photograph  from  which  the 
personal  element,  to  which  the  new  pattern  is  due,  is  largely 
eliminated,  though  even  here  it  shows  to  some  extent  in  the 
management  of  light  and  shade,  composition,  pose,  choice 
of  details,  and  so  on. 

This  constructive  work  of  imagination  in  the  light  of  per- 


272  THE  WRITING  OF  ENGLISH 

sonality  begins  in  childhood;  it  shows  in  the  childish  desire 
to  "make  something" — some  vague  creation — out  of  tinsel 
and  tissue  paper  and  bits  of  colored  wool;  in  the  invention  of 
games;  in  the  laying  out  of  childish  gardens  and  houses.  In 
some  children  it  even  goes  so  far  as  to  invent,  name,  and 
endow  with  all  sorts  of  characteristics,  imaginary  playmates. 
One  of  the  defects  of  our  educational  system  today  is  that 
it  tends  to  suppress  rather  than  to  develop  this  innate  love 
of  creation.  In  the  routine  of  fixed  tasks  in  which  there 
is  no  choice,  and  little  scope  for  originality  and  inventive- 
ness, most  children  learn  to  conform  as  well  as  they  can  to 
the  average,  and  so  establish  a  habit,  which  remains  un- 
broken throughout  life,  of  accepting  unthinkingly  customs 
and  ideas  that  come  to  them  with  no  more  real  authority 
than  a  vague  "It  is  proper,"  "They  are  wearing,"  "They 
say,"  and  so  on.  To  the  mind  in  which  the  imagination 
works  freely,  all  such  expressions  are  meaningless;  it  seeks 
continually  the  root  of  experience  from  which  they  grow, 
and  upon  the  basis  of  its  investigations  creates  its  own  pat- 
terns. It  conforms  to  fashion  or  makes  its  own  fashion  as 
it  will;  it  conforms  to  social  customs  only  when  it  judges 
these  adapted  to  its  needs  and  contributory  to  its  develop- 
ment; it  evolves  its  own  ideas — in  a  word,  it  builds  its  own 
life  structure.  To  live  with  imagination  is  to  live  free,  in 
control  of  your  environment  or  at  least  uncontrolled  by  it, 
and  to  use  all  the  common  materials  and  experiences  of  life 
as  means  of  growth. 

To  do  this,  it  is  necessary  to  realize  the  difference  between 
the  life  that  is  lived  with  imagination  and  that  which  is 
bound  to  the  routine  of  experience.  This  realization  is  in- 
creased by  study  of  the  imaginative  presentation  of  life  in 
literature  and  in  art.  Further,  the  very  effort  to  free  con- 
structive power  in  all  forms  of  work— to  take  the  initiative, 
to  find  individual  ways  in  routine,  to  be  on  the  lookout  for 
fresh  patterns  in  old  combinations  of  things — all  these 


IMAGINATION  ,  273 

attempts  tend  to  stimulate  imaginative  power.  And  as  we 
are  now  concerned  with  the  work  of  learning  to  write  English, 
the  reason  for  this  section  becomes  apparent. 

ASSIGNMENT 

1.  Discuss  the  possibility  of  using  imagination  in  preparing  a 
text-book  on  one  of  the  following  subjects:  geometry,  geography, 
archaeology,  chemistry,  botany,  sociology. 

2.  Compare  two  familiar  text-books  on  the  same  subject  with  re- 
gard to  the  imagination  shown  by  their  authors.    Are  the  differences 
in  material  or  presentation?    Make  notes  before  class  with  a  view 
to  discussing  these  differences  in  detail. 

3.  Discuss  three  novels  known  to  all  the  class,  and  grade  them 
according  to  the  degree  and  quality  of  imagination  shown. 

4.  Discuss  the  following  stanza  as  an  illustration  of  the  fact  that 
imagination  transforms  the  common  things  of  life: 

"Cool  was  the  woodside;  cool  as  her  white  dairy 

Keeping  sweet  the  cream-pan;  and  there  the  boys  from  school, 
Cricketing  below,  rush'd  brown  and  red  with  sunshine; 

O  the  dark  translucence  of  the  deep-eyed  cool! 
Spying  from  the  farm,  herself  she  fetched  a  pitcher 
Full  of  milk,  and  tilted  for  each  in  turn  the  beak. 
Then  a  little  fellow,  mouth  up  and  on  tiptoe, 

Said,  'I  will  kiss  you';  she  laugh'd  and  leaned  her  cheek." 

— George  Meredith. 

5.  Find  six  other  short  passages,  prose  or  verse,  in  which  the 
common  things  of  life  are  transformed  by  imagination. 


PART  III 
PRACTICE 


CHAPTER  XV 
THE  TYPES  OF  WRITING 

THE  technical  processes  which  we  have  been  studying 
have  in  the  course  of  time  gradually  crystallized  into  certain 
types  of  writing,  each  of  which  is  a  composite  of  two  or  more 
of  them.  The  fundamental  distinction  is  of  course  between 
prose  and  verse,  although  there  are  forms — notably  the 
drama — written  in  either  or  in  both.  Before  writing  was 
invented,  all  efforts  to  express  fact  or  emotion,  outside  the 
give  and  take  of  conversation,  were  in  verse.  Then  meter 
was  a  necessary  device  to  aid  the  memory.  Thus  we  have 
the  tribal  song — the  crude  expression  of  a  common  emotion; 
the  ballad — the  short  story  of  primitive  times,  often  with 
emotional  comment  in  the  form  of  a  refrain;  the  epic — the 
primitive  historical  novel;  and  the  drama — the  impersona- 
tion of  tribal  history  for  religious  ends. 

Long  after  writing  was  invented,  prose,  originally  the  un- 
rhythmical language  of  daily  life,  came  to  be  cultivated  as 
a  form  of  expression,  but  only  by 'the  few,  men  who  felt  that 
to  reflect  upon  and  interpret  experience  was  as  necessary  as 
to  re-present  it.  The  great  mass  of  popular  literature  con- 
tinued to  be  composed  in  verse  and  to  be  handed  down  orally 
from  generation  to  generation  long  after  prose  had  come 
into  common  use  for  certain  classes  of  writing. 

Gradually,  however,  stories  and  homilies,  which  had  been 
written  in  verse  for  convenience  of  memorizing,  came  to  be 
written  in  prose.  As  printing  developed,  books  became 
cheaper  and  more  numerous  until  the  idea  of  periodical 
publication  was  reached.  With  the  chapbook  of  popular 
fiction  and  the  political  pamphlet  came  the  idea  of  the  news- 
277 


278  THE  WRITING  OF  ENGLISH 

paper,  and  the  development  of  the  informal  and  critical 
essay.  It  was  not  until  the  nineteenth  century  that  the  short 
story  came  to  be  recognized  as  a  definite  literary  form,  and 
much  of  its  development  has  taken  place  in  our  own  tune. 

To-day  journalism  is  one  of  the  dominant  forces  in  life. 
It  affects  all  forms  of  writing;  and  as  a  part  of  its  general 
scheme  of  educating  the  masses,  it  has  brought  into  existence 
the  popular  informative  article.  How  far  its  pressure  upon 
literature  is  advantageous,  how  far  deleterious,  is  not  for 
discussion  yet;  but  the  fact  is  patent. 

The  journalistic  tone  of  all  writing  to-day  emphasizes  the 
further  fact  that  literature  has  become  in  its  purpose  almost 
entirely  expository.  Primitive  races  like  children  love 
stories  for  their  own  sake;  poets  yield  to  the  delights  of  de- 
scription; the  pioneers  of  thinking  must  use  argument;  but 
the  great  mass  of  writing  produced  to-day  aims  to  explain 
experience.  The  popular  article  explains  fact;  the  short 
story  rarely  confines  itself  to  plot — it  studies  theme  and 
character;  the  essay  interprets  Nature  and  human  nature; 
the  criticism  expounds  literature,  art,  and  even  music.  And 
in  this  work  of  universal  education  the  free  combination  of 
narration  and  description  with  the  different  methods  of 
exposition  and  argument  lies  in  the  hands  of  the  writer. 

The  best — indeed,  the  only — way  to  learn  what  can  be  done 
in  this  direction  is  by  the  intelligent  use  of  models.  This 
excellent  method  was  hit  upon  by  our  shrewd  compatriot, 
Benjamin  Franklin,  at  the  mature  age  of  eleven.  He  says: 

I  thought  the  writing  excellent  [in  the  Spectator]  and  wished,  if 
possible,  to  imitate  it.  With  this  view  I  took  some  of  the  papers, 
and,  making  short  hints  of  the  sentiment  in  each  sentence,  laid  them 
by  for  a  few  days,  and  then,  without  looking  at  the  book,  tried  to 
complete  the  papers  again,  by  expressing  each  hinted  sentiment 
at  length,  as  fully  as  it  had  been  expressed  before,  in  any  suitable 
words  that  should  come  to  hand.  Then  I  compared  my  Spectator 
with  the  original,  discovered  some  of  my  faults,  and  corrected 
them.  ...  I  also  sometimes  jumbled  my  collections  of  hints  into 


THE  TYPES  OF  WRITING  279 

confusion,  and  after  some  weeks  endeavored  to  reduce  them  into 
the  best  order,  before  I  began  to  form  the  full  sentences  and  com- 
plete the  paper.  This  was  to  teach  me  method  in  the  arrangement 
of  thoughts. 

Stevenson's  method  was  frankly  imitative,  and  he  jus- 
tifies it  thus: 

Whenever  I  read  a  book  or  a  passage  that  particularly  pleased  me, 
in  which  a  thing  was  said  or  an  effect  rendered  with  propriety,  in 
which  there  was  either  some  conspicuous  force  or  some  happy  dis- 
tinction in  the  style,  I  must  sit  down  at  once  and  set  myself  to  ape 
that  quality.  I  was  unsuccessful,  and  I  knew  it;  and  tried  again,, 
and  was  again  unsuccessful  and  always  unsuccessful;  but  at  least 
in  these  vain  bouts,  I  got  some  practice  in  rhythm,  and  the  co- 
ordination of  parts. 

That,  like  it  or  not,  is  the  way  to  learn  to  write;  whether  I  have 
profited  or  not,  that  is  the  way. 

And  it  is  the  great  point  of  these  imitations  that  there  still  shines 
beyond  the  student's  reach  his  inimitable  model.  Let  him  try  as  he 
please,  he  is  still  sure  of  failure;  and  it  is  a  very  old  and  a  very  true 
saying  that  failure  is  the  only  highroad  to  success.  .  .  . 

Much  more  to  the  same  effect  he  writes  in  the  essay  called 
"A  College  Magazine"  in  Memories  and  Portraits. 

Both  Franklin's  method  and  Stevenson's  are  justified  by 
their  results.  But  even  if  you  do  not  feel  equal  to  the  eternal 
experimentation  that  makes  great  artists,  or  care  to  attempt 
to  write  like  Mr.  Shaw  one  day  and  Mr.  Chesterton  the  next, 
you  can  make  intelligent  use  of  good  models  simply  by 
reading  them  with  a  view  to  discovering  the  sources  of  their 
success;  and  when  you  discover  a  good  way  of  saying  some- 
thing, you  are  free  to  use  it  and  to  improve  upon  it — upon 
three  conditions. 

One  condition  is,  that  you  should  never  take  into  your 
work  so  much  as  a  single  striking  phrase  without  the  use  of 
quotation  marks  to  show  that  it  is  borrowed.  If  you  do, 
you  are  guilty  of  plagiarism — in  plain  words,  stealing.  And 
literary  stealing  is,  if  anything,  worse  than  material  stealing — 
there  is  never  an  excuse  for  it. 


280  THE  WRITING  OF  ENGLISH 

The  second  is,  that  you  should  never  rest  with  imitation 
of  the  method  of  one  author;  you  should  use  many,  in  order 
to  counterbalance  and  to  counteract  the  effect  of  each.  If 
you  imitate  one,  your  work  is  likely  to  be  a  mere  dilution  of 
his.  If  you  imitate  many,  and  do  it  wisely,  your  work  will 
be  enriched  from  many  sources. 

To  imitate  wisely,  you  must  bear  in  mind  the  third  condi- 
tion, which  is  that  the  right  sort  of  imitation  is  rather  a  kind 
of  assimilation  and  stimulation.  You  study  a  model,  and 
let  the  impressions  that  it  makes  upon  your  mind  sink  in 
and  be  forgotten — merge  into  the  subconscious.  Then  later 
you  begin  to  write;  and  what  you  have  studied  and  admired 
and  forgotten  in  detail  reappears  in  some  mysterious  fashion 
to  fructify  and  enrich  your  own  method. 

All  this,  you  may  say,  is  for  the  professional  writer.  By 
no  means.  He  will  take  care  of  himself.  But  in  these  days 
of  journalism  there  is  no  profession  in  which  an  educated 
man  is  not  likely  to  be  called  upon  at  times  to  write  or  to 
speak.  In  business,  in  science,  in  research  of  all  kinds,  in 
the  law,  in  the  ministry,  in  teaching,  in  politics,  in  every  con- 
ceivable kind  of  work,  the  successful  man  comes  to  the  time 
when  he  needs  technique  and  practice  in  expressing  his  views. 
And  all  the  training  that  you  can  get  in  principles,  all  the 
study  of  the  different  types  of  writing  as  they  are  found  in 
good  models,  will  be  none  too  much  when  that  demand  is 
made  upon  you. 

Moreover,  the  doing  is  its  own  reward.  Your  efforts  to 
interpret  the  truth  will  give  you  more  knowledge  of  the  truth. 
Your  struggles  to  master  English  so  that  it  will  be  your  serv- 
ant on  all  occasions  will  give  you  power  and  the  sense  of 
power  in  dealing  with  your  fellows.  And  your  study  of  the 
work  of  those  who  have  contributed  to  our  wealth  of  thought 
and  the  beauty  of  our  language  will  give  you  the  pleasure  of 
companionship  with  the  best. 

In  this  book  we  must  limit  our  study  to  the  shorter,  simpler 


THE  TYPES  OF  WRITING  281 

forms,  practice  of  which,  however,  always  paves  the  way  for 
more  elaborate  work.  To  this  point,  you  have  been  studying 
the  five-finger  exercises  and  scales  of  writing;  you  will  now 
proceed  to  study  "easy  pieces."  Some  of  you  will  one  day 
be  working  with  the  fugues  and  sonatas  of  literature. 

ASSIGNMENT 

1.  Report  on  the  contents  of  the  latest  bound  volume  of  one 
of  the  leading  magazines:  the  number  of  stories  and  their  average 
length;  the  number  of  articles  and  their  average  length;  the  space 
allotment  for  poetry;  the  editorial  space;  any  peculiar  features  or 
special  types  of  literature  noted. 

In  class  discussion  the  characteristics  of  the  different  magazines 
should  appear.  Make  notes  of  these  for  use  when  you  begin  to 
write. 

2.  As  far  as  time  permits,  read  "skippingly"  to  determine  the 
general  character  of  the  stories  in  the  volume  with  which  you  are 
working,  the  subjects  of  the  articles,  etc.    Prepare  for  class  discus- 
sion a  sort  of  topography  of  your  volume. 

3.  In  a  300-word  paper  explain  why  you  think  that  the  ability 
to  write  English  well  may  or  may  not  be  of  service  to  you  in  your 
life  work. 


CHAPTER  XVI 
NEWSPAPER  WORK 

1.  NEWS 

THE  ideal  newspaper  aims  to  get  all  the  news  and  nothing 
but  the  news,  and  to  publish  it  without  error  as  soon  as  it 
happens.  The  ideal  newspaper  man,  then,  is  one  who  ob- 
serves accurately,  chooses  unerringly,  and  acts  promptly. 
As  a  reporter,  he  always  happens  to  be  where  news  happens, 
all  eyes  and  ears  for  every  detail;  as  a  rewrite  man,  he  has  an 
instinct  which  registers  increasing  and  decreasing  news  values; 
as  an  editor,  he  has  his  finger  always  on  the  pulse  of  public 
curiosity,  and  by  it  regulates  his  paper. 

What  is  "news"?  Primarily,  something  new.  But  this 
definition  is  too  vague:  what  is  news  to  me,  you  may  have 
known  last  week.  What  is  news  in  Biggsville  to-day  was  "old 
stuff  "  in  New  York  yesterday.  On  the  other  hand,  if  Uncle 
Si  Balderdash  of  Biggsville  falls  downstairs  and  breaks  a 
leg,  Biggsville  has  the  news  before  New  York;  and  more — 
New  York  doesn't  want  the  news  at  all.  To  be  new  is  not 
enough.  But  if  Uncle  Si  is  a  hundred  years  old,  and  picks 
himself  up  unhurt,  with  the  gay  remark  that  "livin'  on  oat- 
meal has  kep'  me  so  spry,"  New  York  will  want  the  news. 
Everything  that  occurs  is  new;  but  news  involves  departure 
from  routine;  and  the  degree  of  departure  needed  varies 
directly  according  to  the  size  of  the  town.  The  little  varia- 
tions that  Biggsville  reads  with  interest  are  not  even  men- 
tioned in  a  city  paper. 

There  is,  however,  a  third  element  in  news;  and  that  is  the 
degree  to  which  the  public  is  already  familiar  with  and  in- 


NEWSPAPER  WORK  283 

terested  in  the  subject.  The  best  way  for  an  average  citizen 
to  get  on  the  front  page  of  a  newspaper  is  to  murder  or  be 
murdered;  but  for  one  who  is  already  in  the  public  eye  it  is 
enough  to  acquire  a  slight  cold:  the  more  famous  the  person, 
the  slighter  may  be  the  cold. 

The  fact  is  that  the  newspaper  is  founded  upon  man's 
interest  in  his  fellows,  and  whatever  it  prints  that  takes  his 
thoughts  away  from  himself  and  his  immediate  surroundings 
into  the  larger  human  family  is  the  news  that  he  wishes  to 
read.  The  fact  that  in  supplying  food  for  this  interest  the 
newspaper  stimulates  and  gratifies  public  curiosity  beyond 
the  limits  of  dignity  and  of  decency  is  the  deplorable  side  of 
the  great  work  that  it  does  in  educating  the  masses  of  the 
people  in  current  world  history  and  in  human  nature. 

As  news,  then,  consists  of  great  occurrences  to  small 
people  and  of  small  as  well  as  great  occurrences  to  "great" 
people,  it  follows  that  the  most  news  is  to  be  gathered  where 
most  people  are  assembled:  in  the  city  as  against  the  country; 
and  in  a  small  cosmopolitan  city  as  against  a  provincial  city 
of  larger  size — in  Washington,  for  example,  as  against  Buffalo. 

The  range  and  variety  of  sources  of  news  in  a  city  are  amaz- 
ing The  big  newspapers  have  agents — official  or  unofficial — 
wherever  people  congregate  especially.  Court  rooms,  munic- 
ipal offices,  churches,  schools,  colleges,  police  stations,  the 
meetings  of  all  kinds  of  organizations  and  societies,  hospitals, 
theaters,  social  settlements,  wharves,  markets,  and  all  other 
commercial  centers,  transportation  centers — in  short,  all 
conceivable  gathering  places  of  men  for  any  purpose  whatever 
furnish  news  items.  As  you  read  your  newspaper,  you  will 
observe  that  almost  every  item  contains  a  clear  indication  of 
the  source  from  which  it  is  derived. 

ASSIGNMENT 

1.  Choose  the  best  paper  that  you  know,  and  buy  two  copies 
of  the  same  issue.  First  separate  all  the  advertising  matter  from 


284  THE  WRITING  OF  ENGLISH 

the  news.  Then  cut  up  the  news  matter,  and  arrange  the  articles 
in  groups  under  the  following  heads: 

(1)  Foreign  news 

(2)  National  news 

(3)  Domestic  but  not  local  news 

(4)  Local  news 

(5)  Articles  of  timely  interest,  not  news 

(6)  Departments  (society,  sport,  club,  church,  markets,  dress, 
household,  physical  culture,  garden,  etc.) 

(7)  Correspondence 

(8)  Editorials 

(9)  Miscellaneous 

As  newspapers  differ  widely,  you  need  not  follow  this  outline 
rigidly,  but  make  one  of  your  own  which  contains  about  the  same 
number  of  heads,  and  covers  practically  the  same  ground. 

Provide  enough  envelopes  (10"  x  4",  or  larger),  mark  each  with 
a  heading,  and  place  in  it  all  the  articles  of  one  type.  If  you  are  in 
doubt  as  to  the  classification  of  any  article,  mark  one  envelope 
doubtful  and  use  it  for  matter  that  remains  unclassified  until  after 
class  discussion. 

Put  aside  the  advertising  matter,  and  prepare  answers  to  the 
following  questions: 

(1)  What  sources  of  news  are  indicated  in  the  paper  itself? 

(2)  In  what  various  ways  is  news  transmitted? 

(3)  How  many  pages  are  in  the  paper?    how  many  columns  to 
the  page?    how  many  words  to  the  column? 

(4)  What  different  lengths  of  article  do  you  find?    What  length 
predominates  in  the  different  classes  of  articles? 

(5)  What  peculiar  features  in  policy  or  make-up  do  you  discover? 
On  the  basis  of  your  examination,  prepare  a  brief  description  of 

the  newspaper,  and  try  to  give  it  to  the  class  in  two  or  three  minutes. 
Keep  your  envelopes  and  clippings  for  future  use. 

2.  Read   carefully  the  items  in  your  local  news  envelope,  and 
from  them  make  as  complete  a  list  as  you  can  of  all  possible  news 
sources. 

3.  Out  of  a  single  issue  of  some  newspaper,  cut  lines  indicating 
sources  of  news.    Make  your  collection  supplement  the  list  obtained 
from  1. 

4.  Discuss  in  class  the  following  as  news  sources:  the  corner  drug- 
store; a  fashionable  florist;  the  policeman  on  his  beat;  the  delicates- 
sen store;  children  playing  on  the  street;  a  garage;  the  county  clerk's 
office;  the  Health  Department;  a  fire-engine  house. 


NEWSPAPER  WORK  285 

5.  Lay  out  all  your  local  news  items  on  the  table,  and  measure 
the  space  assigned  to  each.    Decide  on  the  basis  of  (1)  the  matter 
itself,  and  (2)  the  probable  interests  of  the  readers  of  the  paper,  why 
the  space  allotment  has  been  made  as  you  find  it.    You  will  not  be 
able  to  say  in  all  cases;  but  decide  as  many  as  you  can. 

6.  Lay  out  your  foreign  news  similarly,  arranging  it  according 
to  subject-matter,  and  determine   from  how  many  points  of  view 
each  subject  is  treated ;  and  if  from  more  than  one,  why. 

7.  Examine  your  domestic,  non-local  news  and  decide  why  it 
was  admitted  into  the  paper  in  each  case. 

8.  Turn  reporter  and  collect  as  much  campus  news  as  you  can. 
Do  not  write  it  in  full  but  bring  notes  to  class  of  both  the  news  and 
the  source  in  each  case.    Discuss  the  value  of  each  item,  and  suggest 
other  sources  of  news  not  exploited. 

In  collecting  news  items,  it  is  important  to  note  names  (with  care 
for  correct  spelling),  and  such  other  details  as  are  easily  forgotten 
or  confused;  but  it  is  equally  important  not  to  note  everything, 
partly  because  in  the  process  of  note-taking  you  are  likely  to  miss 
other  details,  and  partly  because  too  many  details  may  take  the 
"life"  out  of  a  story. 

2.  GENERAL  PRINCIPLES 

For  all  news  stories  there  is  one  fundamental  and  invariable 
rule:  Keep  within  the  space  limits  assigned.  This  is  called 
"  writing  to  space."  Its  importance  is  due  to  the  fact  that 
in  newspaper  work  time  is  too  valuable  to  be  wasted  in  cut- 
ting down  an  article  that  should  have  been  written  as  ordered. 

Scarcely  less  important  is  the  rule  that  every  story  must 
have  a  "lead,"  giving  the  main  facts,  and  from  this  "lead" 
should  tail  away  in  an  anti-climax.  In  this  respect  the  news 
story  proceeds  by  a  method  exactly  contrary  to  that  of  the 
fiction  story.  The  method,  however,  is  used  for  two  definite 
reasons : 

1.  As  nobody  can  read  the  whole  of  a  newspaper,  and 
everybody  wishes  to  know  at  least  the  gist  of  all  the  news, 
the  lead  gives  him  the  summary,  and  enables  him  to  choose 
whether  or  not  he  will  go  on  to  details. 

2.  As  fresh  news  is  continually  pouring  in  and  crowding 


286  THE  WRITING  OF  ENGLISH 

out  earlier  news  in  successive  editions  of  the  same  paper  on  the 
same  day,  the  order  of  decreasing  importance  enables  the 
editor  to  cut  off  paragraph  after  paragraph  without  injury 
to  the  sense  of  what  precedes,  until,  if  necessary,  he  gets 
back  to  the  lead  itself,  which  still  gives  the  essential  features 
of  the  story. 

In  constructing  a  news  story,  then,  you  should  put  into 
the  lead  all  the  facts  that  the  reader  who  is  in  haste  could 
wish  to  know.  These  may  be  combined  in  a  single  sentence, 
or  better,  in  a  group  of  short  sentences,  of  which  the  first 
states  the  most  important  fact.  Usually  one  paragraph  is 
enough  for  this  material;  but  sometimes  it  may  run  to  two 
or  three  paragraphs.  But  the  order  of  decreasing  importance 
should  be  observed  throughout,  so  that  the  reader  who  gets 
only  the  first  part  of  the  first  sentence  will  nevertheless  have 
the  most  important  fact.  Even  the  opening  words  should 
be  chosen  with  a  view  to  suggesting  the  content  and  impor- 
tance of  the  news. 

The  remainder  of  the  story — the  "body" — should  first 
develop  all  the  points  summed  up  in  the  lead,  in  the  order 
of  their  importance,  and  should  then  add  any  other  details 
or  comments  that  lend  interest.  The  six  questions  that  a 
reporter  tries  to  answer  are:  When?  where?  who?  what?  why? 
and  how?  All  these  details  should  be  given  in  short  par- 
agraphs sufficiently  independent  to  allow  the  story  to  be  cut 
off  at  the  end  of  any  one  and  still  seem  complete.  Average 
paragraph  length  is  from  100-150  words;  and  in  newspaper 
work  a  single  sentence  often  stands  in  a  paragraph  alone. 

Other  rules  wrhich  it  is  useful  to  remember  are: 

1.  Use  short  sentences — 20  words  is  a  good  average  length. 

2.  Use  the  active  voice;  avoid  participles;  reduce  predica- 
tion  by   condensing   subordinate   clauses   to   prepositional 
phrases. 

3.  Be  impersonal:  avoid  both  we  and  /. 

4.  Avoid  formal  relation  words,  such  as  in  the  first  place, 


NEWSPAPER  WORK  287 

moreover,  therefore,  on  the  other  hand,  finally,  etc.,  except  where 
they  are  absolutely  needed  for  clearness — which  is  almost 
never.  Express  your  ideas  in  such  form  and  order  that  they 
need  no  formal  connections  to  make  their  relations  clear. 

5.  Be  straightforward:  avoid  all  such  circumlocutions  as 
a  number  of,  a  distance  of,  at  the  corner  of,  the  height  or  length  or 
breadth  of,  of  age,  there  was,  etc.;  give  the  numbers  without 
preambles  which  only  waste  space. 

6.  Be  as  specific  as  possible  as  to  size,  shape,  color,  and 
all  other  qualities  of  the  object  described  or  discussed. 

7.  Avoid  indirect  quotation:  quote  directly  when  you  have 
space;  otherwise  sum  up. 

8.  Omit  very;  and  use  alone  whenever  you  can,  unless  you 
are  sure  that  you  can  use  only  in  such  a  way  that  it  will 
modify  the  word  intended  (see  Appendix,  §  337). 

9.  If  a  detail  or  a  phrase  or  a  word  can  be  cut  without 
changing  the  effect  of  the  story,  omit  it;  it  is  a  clog,  not  a 
help. 

10.  In  considering  your  vocabulary,  remember  that  when 
a  phrase  or  a  word  comes  easily,  the  chances  are  that  it  is 
one  so  commonly  heard  in  the  connection  that  you  did  not 
have  to  think  at  all  to  get  it.    The  well-worn  phrases  which 
recur   whenever   similar   news   items   are   handled   appear 
simply  because  they  are  familiar,  because  they  come  most 
easily  to  men  in  a  hurry.     But  the  good  journalist  has  at 
least  the  ideal  of  making  his  phrases  as  fresh  as  his  news. 
He  knows  that  fresh  turns  of  phrase  actually  lend  interest  to 
the  content.     Consequently,  he  is  never  far  from  his  dic- 
tionary.   On  the  other  hand,  he  is  as  quick  to  use  effective 
new  words  and  phrases  as  soon  as  they  become  current — 
sometimes  perhaps  too  quick.    He  tries,  however,  to  avoid 
slang  because  he  realizes  that  slang  is  always  very  limited 
in  its  appeal.    Even  while  it  is  popular  it  is  not  understood  by 
all  readers,  and  most  pieces  of  slang  are  as  short-lived  as  a 
fashion  in  dress. 


288  THE  WRITING  OF  ENGLISH 

Before  you  begin  to  practise  the  writing  of  news  stories, 
refer  to  Appendix  I  in  regard  to  the  form  of  "copy." 

ASSIGNMENT 

1.  Choose  from  among  the  news  stories  in  your  envelopes  one  of 
either  national  or  international  interest,  and  analyze  it  in  detail 
as  an  exemplification  of  the  various  rules  given  for  news  stories. 
Find  the  lead,  and  decide  whether  or  not  it  covers  the  most  im- 
portant points,  and  whether  the  most  important  of  all  stands  in 
the  first  sentence.     Examine  the  body  to  see  at  what  points  it  could 
stop;  try  the  effect  of  various  stopping  places. 

2.  Find  the  lead  in  six  others  among  the  most  important  stories 
in  your  envelopes,  and  see  whether  in  each  case  it  summarizes  the 
story.     Discuss  in  class  any  improvements  that  are  suggested ;  news- 
paper men  are  not  infallible. 

3.  Make  from  one  or  more  newspapers  as  long  a  list  as  you  can  of 
infringements  of  the  rules  given  on  pp.  286f.  and  also  discuss  any 
errors  hi  English  that  attract  your  attention. 

3.  NEWS  STORIES 

The  simplest  sort  of  newspaper  work  is  the  straight  news 
story,  which  aims  at  nothing  more  than  presentation  in 
narrative  form,  as  condensed  as  possible,  of  news  that  has  no 
special  features  of  interest.  It  concerns  accidents,  petty 
crimes,  the  meetings  of  political,  educational,  commercial, 
and  other  organizations,  outlines  of  the  careers  of  people  of 
some  prominence  when  they  receive  some  new  appointment 
or  when  they  die,  reports  of  weddings  and  social  functions, 
etc.  In  all  such  stories  the  reporter's  chief  business  is  to  get 
all  the  important  facts,  and  to  waste  no  words.  The  following 
is  a  fair  example  of  this  kind  of  story: 

NAME  NEW  ACADEMY  HEAD 

BREEN  UNIVERSITY  TRUSTEES  NAME  EDWARD  W.  BROWN  TO  SUCCEED 
FOREST  PENDRITH 

The  trustees  of  Breen  University  yesterday  announced  the  ap- 
pointment of  Edward  Brown  of  New  York,  to  succeed  Forrest 
Pendrith  as  principal  of  the  affiliated  academy. 


NEWSPAPER  WORK  289 

Mr.  Brown  is  a  graduate  of  the  Chicago  State  Normal  School  and 
Breen  University,  and  has  done  graduate  work  at  the  University  of 
Nebraska  and  Columbia  University.  He  has  been  principal  of  the 
high  school  at  Julian,  New  York,  a  teacher  in  the  high  school  at 
Breen,  and  subsequently  superintendent  of  schools  in  the  latter  city. 

Mr.  Pendrith  offered  his  resignation  as  principal  of  the  academy 
several  weeks  ago,  and  has  since  been  appointed  instructor  in  Latin 
at  the  university.  Mr.  Brown  will  assume  his  new  duties  in  June. 

ASSIGNMENT 

1.  Compare  with  the  story  just  quoted  others  which  you  find  in 
your  local  news  envelope,  and  see  how  many  of  them  you  can  cut 
to  advantage. 

2.  Write  three  stories  of  less  than  150  words  each  on  campus 
news.    In  class  discussion,  correct  them  from  the  point  of  view  of 
details  omitted,  and  of  unnecessary  words  used. 


4.  FEATURE  STORIES 

Stories  which  involve  far  greater  departure  from  the  rou- 
tine of  life  than  do  ordinary  news  stories  are  naturally  of  far 
greater  interest,  and  to  bald  narrative  are  added  description 
and  exposition  in  the  form  of  dialogue.  The  chief  characters 
in  the  real-life  drama  are  made,  whenever  it  is  possible,  to 
speak  for  themselves.  So  in  an  account  of  "a  murder,  wit- 
nesses, the  victim's  friends,  and  if  possible,  the  murderer  are 
quoted.  These  comments  are  obtained  by  interview.  Fur- 
ther, when  some  prominent  person  is  being  written  about 
in  connection  with  some  particular  event,  the  interview  is 
often  sought  for  its  own  sake,  that  is,  because  of  public  in- 
terest in  the  speaker,  and  not  because  there  is  any  special 
news  to  report  about  him  at  the  moment. 

Very  similar  in  type  to  the  feature  story  is  the  report  of  a 
speech  or  of  various  speeches  at  a  meeting. 

All  these  stories  must  be  dealt  with  in  the  same  way.  The 
material  must  be  presented,  rather  than  narrated;  and  the 
interesting  points  of  the  speech  or  conversation  must  be 


290  THE  WRITING  OF  ENGLISH 

made  the  high  lights,  as  it  were,  of  the  picture.  The  reporter 
learns  to  choose  what  is  new,  vital,  in  a  speech,  and  to  sum- 
marize, or  omit,  the  remainder;  he  learns  to  quote  what 
is  picturesque,  characteristic,  in  an  interview,  and  to  omit 
much  that  was  actually  spoken.  His  method  is  akin  to  that 
of  the  writer  of  fiction  who  concentrates  his  dialogue.  The 
following  extracts  from  a  long  article  show  this  method : 

JURY  TAMPERING  IN  I.  W.  W.  CASE  CHARGED  BY  U.  S. 

LANDIS   DISMISSES   PANEL    OF   200   AND   THE   TRIAL   STARTS   ANEW 

Charges  of  jury  tampering  broke  like  a  bombshell  in  the  I.  W.  W. 
trial  yesterday  afternoon.  Judge  Landis'  answer  to  the  accusation 
was  to  discharge  the  entire  panel  of  200  men.  The  work  of  eight 
days  was  swept  into  the  junk  heap  and  the  trial  begins  all  over  at 
the  start. 

A  new  venire  of  150  men  was  ordered,  the  first  fifty  to  report  a 
week  from  to-morrow.  Until  then  the  trial  is  off.  Charles  F.  Clyne, 
United  States  district  attorney,  caused  the  upheaval  by  alleging  that 
agents  of  the  I.  W.  W.  had  approached  practically  every  man  called 
for  jury  service  in  the  federal  court. 

CLYNE   PROMISES   EVIDENCE 

"If  we  are  given  until  Monday  morning  we  can  have  an  avalanche 
of  evidence  to  show  that  these  men  have  been  approached,"  said 
Mr.  Clyne  to  the  court.  "I  cannot  point  my  finger  at  the  man  or 
men  who  have  been  doing  it,  but  I  may  be  able  to  do  it  soon." 

The  climax  came  after  George  F.  Vanderveer,  counsel  for  the 
I.  W.  W.,  had  tendered  four  jurymen  to  the  government  and  had 
asked  that  they  be  sworn.  This  brought  Mr.  Clyne's  protest  and 
his  revelations. 

"Women  have  been  terrified  by  the  investigations  made  by  the 
defense,  thinking  their  menfolk  were  being  investigated  by  the 
government  as  spies,"  added  the  district  attorney. 

TELL   OF  MYSTERIOUS   VISITORS 

Before  he  made  these  statements  he  had  questioned  the  four 
tentative  jurymen  point  blank,  asking  them  if  they  had  any  myste- 
rious visitors,  or  any  peculiar  telephone  calls.  They  admitted  that 
they  had. 


NEWSPAPER  WORK  291 

Judge  Landis  ordered  the  jurymen  from  the  courtroom  and  then 
called  ten  veniremen  who  were  waiting.  He  questioned  them  pri- 
vately, a  court  reporter  taking  down  their  replies.  At  the  close  of 
the  court's  investigation  he  dismissed  the  entire  waiting  panel. 

"How  does  the  government  conduct  its  investigation  of  jury- 
men?" asked  Otto  Christensen,  associate  counsel  for  the  I.  W.  W. 

"Just  as  it  has  done  for  fifty  years,"  replied  Mr.  Clyne. 

LAWYERS  IN   DARK 

"The  prosecutor  alleges  that  he  first  learned  of  this  last  Thurs- 
day," broke  in  Attorney  Vanderveer.  "Yet  he  has  gone  right 
ahead  questioning  jurors.  He  has  been  gambling  with  his  chance 
to  get  a  jury — 

"You  didn't  want  to  gamble  at  all,"  said  Clyne. 

"You  can  get  as  nasty  as  you  want  with  me  outside  the  court- 
room, but  not  here,"  flashed  Vanderveer. 

"All  right,  outside!"  replied  Mr.  Clyne,  militantly. 

Vanderveer  and  Clyne  were  standing  face  to  face,  glaring. 

"This  lawsuit  does  not  belong  to  either  the  prosecuting  attorney 
or  the  defense,"  broke  in  Judge  Landis.  "At  the  first  indication  of 
any  monkeying  with  the  jury  it  is  the  duty  of  any  attorney  con- 
nected with  the  case,  or  any  juryman,  to  bring  the  matter  to  the 
attention  of  the  court." 

JURORS  GIVE  EVIDENCE 

"While  we  have  had  intimations,  the  positive  proof  only  became 
apparently  questioning  the  jurymen  to-day,"  said  Frank  Nebeker, 
who  pushed  his  way  to  the  bar. 

William  B.  Russell,  604  West  Thirty-third  street,  told  the  court 
that  a  man  had  approached  his  wife  while  he  was  away.  He  said 
the  man  had  asked  her  if  she  had  ever  heard  her  husband  say  that 
the  I.  W.  W.  members  were  bomb  throwers. 

"Who  are  you?"  she  asked. 

"I'm  an  I.  W.  W.,"  the  man  replied,  according  to  Russell.  He 
also  told  of  a  phone  call,  the  man's  voice  remarking  that  he  was  the 
man  "who  saw  your  wife,"  and  of  his  efforts  to  get  the  man  to  meet 
him  face  to  face. 

ASSIGNMENT 

1.  Report  as  accurately  as  you  can  a  short  conversation. 

2.  Choose  from  any  of  your  envelopes  a  report  of  a  speech  or 


292  THE  WRITING  OF  ENGLISH 

of  several  speeches  at  a  meeting,  and  an  interview.    Criticize  and 
improve  these  in  any  way  you  can. 

3.  Write  a  200-word  report  of  some  lecture,  sermon,  or  meeting. 
Discuss  the  reports  in  class,  and  improve  them.    It  is  desirable  that 
several  students  should  use  the  same  material  in  order  to  get  a 
better  basis  for  comparison. 

4.  Write  a  200-word  interview  with  some  real  person.    Talk  to 
your  dressmaker  or  tailor,  and  write  on:  What  is  Worn  on  the 
Campus.    Talk  to  a  florist,  or  grocer,  or  the  head  of  the  employment 
or  housing  bureau,  or  the  keeper  of  a  boarding  house,  and  write  on 
a  subject  suggested  by  the  conversation.    Remember  to  suppress  the 
/  and  the  we.    Throw  all  the  emphasis  upon  the  person  interviewed. 


5.  "HUMAN  INTEREST"  STORIES 

It  often  happens  that  news  which  directly  concerns  very 
few  people  appeals  to  many  by  virtue  of  what  is  called  its 
"human  interest";  that  is,  it  illustrates  some  quality  of 
human  nature  which  all  men  like  to  think  that  they  possess, 
or  which  they  would  like  to  possess;  or  it  typifies  and  so 
universalizes  some  common  aspect  of  experience — gives  it 
the  quality  of  humor  or  of  pathos  which  makes  it  appeal  to 
the  emotions  o,f  all  men.  This  is  called  the  "human  interest " 
story;  and  its  methods  are  similar  to  the  methods  of  fiction. 
Here  alone  in  the  newspaper  it  is  not  necessary  for  the 
lead  to  be  a  summary;  it  may  on  the  contrary  merely  suggest 
the  point  of  the  story,  which  is  not  revealed  until  the  last 
sentence,  as  in  the  very  modern  short  story.  Further, 
description  and  dialogue  are  "played  up"  for  all  they  are 
worth.  Colloquialisms  and  slang  are  used  to  give  local  color, 
and  every  drop  of  humor  or  of  pathos — whichever  it  happens 
to  be — is  extracted  from  the  situation.  In  fact,  the  great 
danger  in  this  type  of  story  lies  in  the  temptation  to  overdo 
the  emotional  aspect.  The  art  of  writing  such  a  story  lies 
in  distinguishing  between  true  and  false  feeling,  and  in 
eliminating  sentimentality.  The  chief  characteristic  of  the 
human  interest  story  is  its  variety;  it  may  be  treated  in  any 


NEWSPAPER  WORK  293 

way  whatsoever,  provided  that  it  is  successful  in  its  emotional 
appeal.  In  the  following  examples,  note:  (1)  the  suggestive 
leads;  (2)  the  use  of  dialogue,  and  the  realism  of  the  dialogue; 
(3)  the  use  of  description: 

FATE  CANNOT  HARM  RICHARD:  HE  HAS  DINED 
WE'LL  LET  YOU  READ  THIS  TO  GET  THE  POINT  OF  IT 

Richard  Poillon,  who  gave  his  address  as  the  Gladstone  hotel, 
entered  the  Bismarck  garden  with  the  air  of  one  who  waves  his 
hand  and  causes  the  landscape  to  recede  at  his  mere  gesture.  Nine 
waiters  and  seventeen  bus  boys  fell  over  each  other  to  attend.  M. 
Poillon  condescended  to  sit.  He  viewed  the  carte  de  jour  and  de- 
bated the  little  neck  clams.  He  would  try  them. 

"Clams,"  said  he,  smartly,  "garcon!" 

They  were  brought.  M.  Poillon  made  a  few  mystic  passes  and 
the  clams  fairly  leaped  into  his  ample  throat. 

THE  WAITER   DREAMS   OF   RICHES 

"Consomme,"  he  purred,  "at  once." 

It  was  before  him.  The  waiter  stood  dreamily  wondering  if  he 
should  have  a  limousine  or  a  new  flat-building  out  of  the  tip  so  cer- 
tainly forthcoming. 

"A  filet,"  said  M.  Poillon,  "with  a  piquant  sauce.  A  salad  of  a 
variety  of  crisp  vegetables  and  fruits.  The  wine  at  the  temperature 
of  the  room.  Attend!" 

It  came — and  went.  The  waiter  decided  upon  a  summer  home  in 
the  Catskills.  He  scratched  his  palm  on  the  corner  of  the  table. 
Other  waiters  murmured,  "Lucky  stiff!" 

"Another  quart  of  the  '48!"  said  M.  Poillon  graciously,  now  the 
warmth  of  the  grape  rippled  in  his  blood.  The  '48  came. 

"Perfectos,"  murmured  M.  Poillon. 

He  bit  the  end  from  one  and  lighted  it;  others  in  his  pocket. 

AND   THEN — LAKE  VIEW    11 

"Demitasse,"  he  said.  He  smiled  amiably  as  through  the  rich 
velvet  of  the  Havana  haze  he  viewed  the  world  anew.  He  turned 
idly. 

"Gallon,"  he  said.  The  waiter  prepared  to  hold  out  both 
hands. 


294  THE  WRITING  OF  ENGLISH 

"My  good  fellow,"  said  he,  "will  you  be  good  enough  to  call  Lake 
View  11  on  the  telephone?  Also,  what  is  the  bill?" 

"The  bill,"  said  the  waiter,  "is  $12.10.    Who  shall  I  ask  for?" 
"Lake  View  11,"  said  M.  Poillon,  "is  the  Town  Hall  station. 
You  may  call  the  police.    There  is  no  money." 

HERO  SAVES  24;  DIES  WITH  "PAL"  IN  DEADLY  GAS 
BREAKING  VALVE  IN  ILLINOIS  STEEL  PLANT  FATAL  TO  TWO  WORKERS 

Greater  love  hath  no  man  than  this:  that  a  man  lay  down  his  life  for 
his  friends. — John  15,  13. 

Twenty-five  of  his  fellow  men  were  in  the  same  room  with  young 
Sheldon  Lacey  out  at  the  Illinois  Steel  company's  plant  in  South 
Chicago  yesterday  afternoon.  It  was  the  washer  room  adjoining 
blast  furnace  No.  1,  and  the  men  for  the  most  part  were  furnace 
blowers,  like  Lacey. 

Along  one  side  of  the  washer  room  is  a  big  pipe.  Waste  gas — 
deadly  poison  when  freed — flowed  through  the  pipe. 

LACEY   WATCHES   VALVE 

The  men,  dogtired  after  many  hours  of  hard  work,  were  enjoying 
a  few  minutes  of  rest.  They  had  separated  into  half  a  dozen  small 
groups  and  were  talking — all  but  Lacey,  who  was  too  tired  to  talk. 
Lacey's  eyes  were  on  the  wastepipe's  two  foot  valve.  He  wasn't 
intentionally  inspecting  the  valve;  just  happened  to  be  looking  at 
it. 

Lacey,  like  the  rest  of  the  men,  knew  death  moved  behind  the 
valve.  He  wasn't  worried.  The  pipe  had  been  performing  its  office 
a  long  time  and  was  good  for  many  years — as  long  as  the  building 
itself.  It  was  like  a  heavily  insulated  wire,  deadly  inside,  but  not 
dangerous  to  the  touch. 

POISONOUS   GAS   FLOODS   ROOM 

So  Lacey  happened  to  be  looking  at  the  valve  when  a  rivet  gave 
way.  There  was  a  crash  as  the  iron  covering  dropped  to  the  floor. 
Into  the  room  rushed  the  gas.  Lacey  thought  quickly.  He  was 
near  the  door  and  the  open  air.  To  approach  the  broken  pipe  meant 
certain  death.  He  turned  his  back  on  the  door. 

"Get  out,  boys!"  yelled  Lacey.    "I'll  hold  it  back  a  while." 
The  gas  sapped  his  strength  so  rapidly  it  was  all  he  could  do  to 
lift  the  valve.     But  he  managed  to  get  it  back  into  place — rather 


NEWSPAPER  WORK  295 

almost  into  place.     Through  the  cracks  and  the  hole  where  the 
rivet  had  been  the  gas  reached  for  him. 

AND   THEN    DEATH 

They  were  all  out  when  Lacey  and  the  valve  fell  together.  One  of 
them  turned.  He  was  Peter  Moncilochi,  old  enough  to  be  Lacey's 
father,  and  of  an  alien  race,  but  his  "partner."  Peter  managed  to 
drag  Lacey  half  way  to  the  door.  There  both  fell  again.  Four 
other  volunteers  carried  them  out — and  collapsed  themselves. 

A  few  hours  later  both  died  in  the  company  hospital,  within  five 
minutes  of  each  other.  The  four  volunteers  were  lying  near,  still 
unconscious  and  perhaps  dying.  No  one  knew  the  names  of  the 
four.  Men  go  by  numbers  in  the  mills  until  they  die. 

ASSIGNMENT 

1.  Reduce  each  of  the  human  interest  stories  quoted  above  to 
half  its  space  by  turning  it  into  straight  narrative;  then  tell  it  in 
the  fewest  possible  words.    Did  the  nature  of  the  story  in  each  case 
warrant  its  development  into  a  feature  story?    Why? 

2.  Find  all  the  human  interest  stories  in  your  envelopes,  and  de- 
cide in  regard  to  each  whether  it  was  worth  treatment  in  this  way. 

3.  The  following  clippings  are  feature  stories  very  slightly  devel- 
oped beyond  the  point  of  bare  news.     Use  your  imagination  to 
develop  one  of  them  with  such  additional  details  as  might  have 
grown  out  of  the  situation: 

SNIPE  SEASON  OPEN?    SURE 

LAKE  FOREST  FRESHMAN  SPENDS  FIVE  HOURS  OPENING  IT 
THOROUGHLY 

Harold  Rabbits,  freshman  at  Lake  Forest  college,  never  wants 
to  go  snipe  hunting  by  moonlight  any  more.  Wednesday  night 
several  seniors  at  the  college  induced  Rabbits,  who  hails  from 
Coddlesville,  111.,  to  join  them  on  a  snipe  hunting  party.  The 
freshman  was  given  a  lantern,  whistle  and  a  bag.  He  was  in- 
structed to  hold  the  bag  open  at  the  bottom  of  a  ravine  near  the 
Harold  F.  McCormick  estate.  He  waited  with  the  open  bag  from 
9  o'clock  until  2  o'clock  yesterday  morning. 

PIGS  is  PIGS,  BUT  THESE  PORKERS  WIN  THEIR  STRAPS 

Belchertown,  Mass.,  Aug.  26. — [Special.] — Farmer  Jack  Newman 
of  this  town  has  organized  his  piggery  according  to  the  infantry  drill 


296  THE  WRITING  OF  ENGLISH 

regulations.  He  has  nearly  a  hundred  pigs  on  his  farm  and  out  of 
the  hundred  he  has  picked  a  squad  of  thirty-two  selected  as  the 
most  intelligent. 

It  took  about  two  weeks  to  select  his  squad;  then  the  drilling 
commenced.  Every  morning  before  breakfast  these  pigs  followed 
their  drill  master  around  the  edge  of  the  field,  just  inside  the  wire. 
Then  they  paraded  across  the  center  and  did  a  grand  march. 

After  this  was  kept  up  for  about  two  weeks  Mr.  Newman  pur- 
posely delayed  his  appearance  and  found  that  the  pigs  went  through 
their  usual  evolutions  alone. 

4.  Write  200- words  on  a  real  hazing  experience,  or  some  other 
amusing  incident  of  the  freshman  year. 

5.  Write  a  200-word  human  interest  story  about  one  of  the  follow- 
ing situations:  (1)  a  woman  wearing  blue  fox  furs  is  caught  putting 
eggs  into  her  muff;  (2)  a  chimpanzee  in  full  evening  dress  strolls 
into  the  lobby  of  a  New  York  hotel;  (3)  a  sexton  breaks  his  neck  in 
digging  his  own  grave,  the  making  of  which  he  is  unwilling  to  trust 
to  anyone  else. 


6.  "  REWRITE  "  AND  "  FOLLOW-UP  "  STORIES 

Whenever  a  piece  of  important  news  is  printed,  it  is  likely 
to  be  followed  by  other  stories  of  two  types:  (1)  "follow-up" 
stories;  and  (2)  "rewrite"  stories. 

In  the  "follow-up  "  stories  new  developments  have  occurred 
since  the  appearance  of  the  first  story;  these  must  be  given 
the  first  place  in  the  lead,  while  the  original  features  must 
come  after,  to  remind  people  what  the  original  situation  was. 

In  the  "rewrite"  stories,  there  is  practically  no  new  mate- 
rial; but  the  earlier  story  appeared  in  another  paper,  or  in  an 
earlier  edition  of  the  same  paper,  and  an  appearance  of  fresh- 
ness must  be  given  to  the  news  by  viewing  it  from  a  fresh 
angle;  that  is,  by  writing  a  new  lead  for  it. 

The  best  way  to  understand  the  methods  used  in  such 
articles  is  to  compare  articles  giving  the  same  news  that 
appear  in  an  evening  paper,  and  again  in  a  morning  paper. 
You  will  be  able  to  distinguish  at  once  between  the  follow-up 
and  the  rewrite  stories.  Notice  particularly  how  the  proper- 


NEWSPAPER  WORK  297 

tions  vary;  and  also  how  the  news  itself  either  grows  or  dimin- 
ishes overnight  in  its  demand  upon  the  public  attention. 

Especially,  good  practice  in  beginning  newspaper  work  is 
that  of  rewriting  with  a  new  lead,  and  at  the  same  time  con- 
densing. Nothing  gives  more  flexibility,  which  is  one  of  the 
newspaper  man's  chief  assets. 

Note  the  condensation  in  the  following  rewrite: 

Original  Article 
COULD  BUILD  "Sus"  CHASERS  IN  CAPITAL 

Firm  in  the  belief  that  the  workmen  of  the  Washington  Navy 
Yard  have  no  superiors  in  the  United  States,  the  Chamber  of  Com- 
merce has  petitioned  the  Secretary  of  the  Navy  to  order,  if  possible, 
the  building  of  submarine  boat  chasers  and  other  lightdraft  vessels 
here. 

In  a  letter  addressed  to  the  Secretary  of  the  Navy,  A.  Leftwich 
Sinclair,  president  of  the  Chamber  of  Commerce,  states: 

"In  view  of  the  enlargement  of  the  Washington  navy  yard — we 
understand  the  new  boiler  shop  will  be  completed  in  four  months — 
will  it  not  be  possible  to  order  the  building  of  submarine  chasers  and 
boiler  work  repairs  on  light  draft  vessels  to  be  done  in  Washington? 

"The  Chamber  of  Commerce  believes  that  the  workmen  of  the 
Washington  navy  yard  have  no  superiors  in  any  yard  /in  the  United 
States,  and  on  many  classes  of  work  we  believe  that  they  excel  the 
men  of  other  yards,  as  has  been  demonstrated  by  tests  from  time 
to  time." 

Rewrite 

CHAMBER  BOOSTS  NAVY  YARD 
COMMERCE  BOARD  ASKS  SECRETARY  DANIELS  TO  EXTEND  WORK  DONE 

HERE 

In  view  of  the  expansion  of  the  working  capacity  of  the  Washing- 
ton navy  yard  since  the  outbreak  of  war,  the  Washington  Chamber 
of  Commerce  has  written  to  Secretary  Daniels  of  the  Navy  De- 
partment asking  him  to  build  submarine  chasers  and  to  have  light 
warships  repaired  at  the  local  yard. 

The  chamber  points  out  that  improvements  are  under  way  to 
make  even  larger  the  capacity  of  the  local  yard.  The  letter  states 


298  THE  WRITING  OF  ENGLISH 

that  the  yard  has  a  force  of  workmen  equal  in  ability  to  any  in  the 
country. 

ASSIGNMENT 

Cut  out  of  an  evening  paper  six  news  items  of  sufficient  impor- 
tance to  suggest  that  they  will  be  repeated  in  the  morning  paper. 
Try  your  hand  at  rewrites,  and  the  next  morning  compare  your 
work  with  that  which  actually  appears  in  the  paper.  Reduce  one 
item  to  one-half;  one  to  one- third;  one  to  one-fourth;  and  the  others 
to  the  lowest  possible  terms.  Do  not  attempt  the  follow-up  as  you 
will  not  have  the  necessary  news. 

7.  THE  SUNDAY  EDITION 

The  Sunday  edition  of  a  paper  usually  contains  various 
popular  articles  on  subjects  of  timely  interest.  These  do  not 
differ  in  treatment  from  the  popular  expositions  of  this  kind 
prepared  for  magazines,  except  that  they  conform  rigidly 
to  the  space  limits  assigned.  In  order  to  write  such  an  article 
successfully,  you  must  keep  one  eye  on  the  output  of  the 
paper  from  week  to  week,  and  the  other  eye  on  current 
events;  and  where  you  see  an  opening,  rush  your  article. 

The  management  of  departments  demands  special  knowl- 
edge of  the  subject,  and  special  ability  to  plan  and  to  enlist 
the  aid  of  experts,  but  not  special  training  in  writing.  If  you 
know  enough  on  any  subject  of  public  interest — for  example, 
sports,  or  gardening,  or  marketing,  or  cooking — you  have 
only  to  study  carefully  the  columns  of  some  good  paper  to 
get  an  idea  how  such  a  department  is  conducted. 

ASSIGNMENT 

1.  If  you  have  a  popular  article  among  your  clippings,  note  the 
subject  and  the  space  limit  assigned,  and  write  for  the  same  paper 
a  similar  article  on  some  subject  of  timely  interest.    Such  a  subject 
is  best  suggested  from  the  news  reported  in  the  paper  itself. 

2.  Collect  facts  and  write  300  words  on:  How  Students  Pay  their 
Way  through  College. 


NEWSPAPER  WORK  299 

3.  Go  to  a  museum  or  art  gallery  and  collect  facts  in  regard  to 
the  most  recent  acquisitions.    Write  100-200  words. 

4.  Collect  facts  from  the  college  bookstore  and  other  sources, 
and  write  300  words  on:  What  College  Students  Read  for  Amuse- 
ment. 

5.  Write  300  words  on  the  career  of  some  popular  athlete  or 
some  member  of  the  faculty. 

6.  Report  on  the  departments  that  appear  in  the  paper  you  read: 
the  number  of  them;  space  allotted;  and  practical  value. 


8.  EDITORIALS 

The  editorial  is  the  instrument  by  which  the  newspaper 
attempts  to  mold  public  opinion.  It  is  thus  for  the  most  part 
argumentative  in  purpose.  The  leading  editorials  are  based 
upon  the  chief  news  items  of  the  day;  and  they  aim  to  sum 
up  the  facts  in  such  a  manner  that  the  readers  of  the  paper 
will  be  of  the  same  mind  in  regard  to  these  facts  as  the  edito- 
rial staff.  When  the  news  concerns  a  highly  debatable  issue, 
straight  argument  may  be  used;  but  commonly  the  more 
unobtrusive  methods  of  persuasion  are  employed.  Good 
editorials  are  often  models  of  persuasion;  and  should  be  care- 
fully analyzed  by  students  of  newspaper  writing. 

When  the  news  of  the  day  is  unimportant,  the  editorial 
space  of  a  paper  is  filled  with  short  essays  expressing  the 
editor's  general  philosophy  of  life,  or  his  comments  on  topics 
of  current  interest,  which  may  not,  however,  be  specially  be- 
fore the  public  on  the  day  when  the  editorial  appears.  Such 
essays  may  still  be  of  a  persuasive  character — for  the  con- 
scientious editor  has  the  habit  of  educating  his  readers;  but 
they  may  also  be  purely  expository,  as,  for  instance,  when  a 
big  city  paper  publishes  in  the  Christmas  season  an  enter- 
taining editorial  on  the  odors  associated  with  Christmas. 

An  editorial  may  range  in  length  from  a  short  paragraph 
to  more  than  a  column;  its  limit  is  determined  by  the  impor- 
tance of  the 'subject,  the  strength  of  the  editor's  convictions, 


300  THE  WRITING  OF  ENGLISH 

and,  in  the  case  of  minor  editorials,  by  the  amount  of  space 
left  when  the  editorials  expressing  the  paper's  policy  have 
been  written. 

As  editorials  on  news  items  of  the  day  lose  much  of  their 
effectiveness  when  they  grow  out  of  date,  the  following  exam- 
ples have  been  chosen  because  they  are  interesting  comments 
on  topics  of  humane  value  which  are  likely  to  concern  people 
for  some  years: 

SOMETHING  OTHER  THAN  COMMERCIALISM 
[From  the  Minneapolis  Journal] 

A  professor,  writing  in  the  Atlantic  Monthly,  points  out  that 
Venice  was  a  commercial  city  and  supported  Titian  and  Giorgione, 
that  Holland  was  a  commercial  country  and  supported  Rembrandt 
and  Franz  Hals.  He  concludes  that  commercialism  and  art  are  not 
antipathetic.  He  declares,  indeed,  that  riches  are  necessary  to 
art;  that  art  is  the  luxury  of  a  rich  community. 

No  doubt  he  is  right.  But  it  is  also  a  fact  that  Carthage  was 
rich  and  hadn't  any  art  that  was  worth  while,  that  London  is  com- 
mercial but  isn't  favorable  to  art,  that  Norway,  poor  Norway,  pro- 
duced Ibsen  and  Bjornson.  Therefore  it  cannot  be  true  that  riches 
cause  art  or  that  art  is  dependent  upon  riches. 

The  professor  believes  that  commercialism  is  not  what  is  the 
matter  with  present  day  writing  in  this  country,  which  writing  he 
admits  to  be  of  no  lasting  and  little  temporary  value.  But  he  finds 
the  reason  for  that  phenomenon  not  in  our  riches  but  in  our  pursuit 
of  riches.  All  of  us  are  after  the  dollar,  engaged  in  that  engrossing 
pursuit,  and  have  not  the  leisure  of  mind  or  sufficient  attention  to 
read  anything  save  that  which  is  designed  to  go  in  one  ear  and  out 
of  the  other,  to  amuse  the  vacant  hour  and  to  be  forgotten,  in  order 
not  to  interfere  with  serious  business. 

Causes  of  divers  sorts  may  be  discovered  or  invented,  but  the 
fact  is  patent  to  all  intelligent  minds.  The  fact  everybody  is  agreed 
on.  The  fact  is  really  surprising — namely:  that  people  as  well 
educated,  as  shrewd,  as  mentally  alive,  as  productive  in  utilitarian 
endeavors  as  are  our  people,  read  and  enjoy  the  stuff  they  do— 
sentimental,  sensational,  superficial — about  the  poorest  aesthetic 
provender  that  any  really  civilized  people  was  ever  contented  with. 

The  fact  is  patent,  palpable.     The  reason  for  it  perhaps  our 


NEWSPAPER  WORK  301 

children's  children  will  find  out.    Meantime  our  critics  can  guess,  or 
confine  themselves  to  the  simple  business  of  sneering. 

The  professor  in  the  Atlantic,  however,  has  hope  for  the  future. 
So  have  we — when  all  who  are  now  living  and  reading  have  died  off. 

EFFACING  TIME 
[From  the  Des  Moines  Register  and  Leader] 

Rather  a  striking  quotation  from  the  late  John  Muir  was  made 
at  the  burial  of  this  author  and  naturalist  who  died  in  California 
the  day  before  Christmas.  "Longest  is  the  life  that  contains  the 
largest  amount  of  time-effacing  enjoyment;  of  work  that  is  a  steady 
delight,"  is  the  remark  which  was  made  by  John  Muir  and  quoted 
by  his  friend. 

It  suggests  a  point  of  view  that  with  all  our  strenuous  interest  in 
life  we  are  likely  to  miss.  Time  need  not  worry  us  when  we  are 
absorbed  with  the  joy  which  makes  us  forget  time.  We  become  un- 
mindful either  of  its  dragging  or  of  its  flying  when  we  concern  our- 
selves with  work  that  is  a  steady  delight.  Every  new  year,  while  it 
lasts,  ought  to  be  just  as  good  as  eternity  for  us.  We  can  only  live 
in  the  present  anyway. 

But  we  have  formed  a  habit  of  looking  ahead  and  anticipating 
the  end  of  our  day  or  our  week  or  our  year,  and  of  looking  back  and 
regretting  the  beginning.  And  we  lose  a  good  deal  of  the  passing 
moments  in  this  rather  futile  occupation.  So  far  as  we  know,  it 
might  turn  out  that  time  is  only  an  illusion  anyhow,  invented  by 
mortals  who  are  sighing  for  eternity.  The  wisest  course  seems  to 
be  to  grasp  the  little  section  of  existence  before  us  that  the  philos- 
ophers have  such  difficulty  in  defining  and  live  it  to  the  best  of  our 
ability  for  "steady  delight."  This  would  really  end  a  lot  of  our  dis- 
may about  the  flight  and  passing  of  time. 

ASSIGNMENT 

1.  Examine  and  classify  the  editorials  in  your  envelope.    Choose 
the  best  of  the  (1)  argumentative,  (2)  persuasive,  and  (3)  expository 
types,  and  discuss  their  points  in  class. 

2.  Finish  the  editorial  of  which  the  opening  paragraphs  are  quoted 
below.    Write  about  200  words  more: 

"People  are  apt  to  forget  that  they  have  noses.  Unless  they 
happen  to  live  in  the  neighborhood  of  the  stockyards,  or  near  a 
cherry  tree  which  blossoms  occasionally,  they  do  not  connect  their 


302  THE  WRITING  OF  ENGLISH 

nostrils  with  any  of  their  enjoyments  or  pains.  They  never  think 
of  classifying  things,  holidays,  for  instance,  by  the  discriminating 
messages  conveyed  to  their  brains  from  their  nasal  passages. 

"  But  however  little  the  subject  may  be  regarded,  most  of  the 
important  festivals  have  a  strong  emotional  background  of  odors. 
The  charm  of  Christmas  is  reputed  to  be  in  the  obvious  delight  of 
the  children,  in  the  gay  colors,  in  the  really  jolly  spirit  of  giving. 
Nobody  thinks  of  smelling  Christmas." 

3.  Examine  the  editorials  in  a  week's  issues  of  your  newspaper. 
List  the  subject  of  each,  and  write  opposite  it  the  heading  of  the 
news  article  that  suggested  it,  or  the  general  subject  that  probably 
suggested  it.     If  you  cannot  determine  this,  note  the  fact.    Then 
classify  your  subjects.    Compare  notes  in  class  discussion,  and  draw 
your  own  conclusions. 

4.  Write  a  200-word  editorial  on  some  news  item  in  your  paper 
on  which  the  editor  has  not  already  commented.     Use  either  ar- 
gument or  persuasion. 

5.  Write  a  300-word  argument  on  some  topic  of  vital  public  in- 
terest. 

6.  Write  an  expository  editorial  (200-300  words)  on  one  of  the 
following  topics:  Christmas  Gifts;  Cats  vs.  Birds;  On  Getting  up 
Early;  Spring  Poetry;  Strawberries  in  Midwinter;  Celery  in  Mid- 
summer; a  subject  of  your  own  choosing. 

7.  Convert  your  editorial  into  persuasion. 

8.  Convert  it  into  straight  argument. 


CHAPTER  XVII 
THE  SHORT  STORY 

1.  CHARACTERISTICS  AND  SOURCES 

THE  short  story  may  contain  from  2000  to  7000  words; 
4000  is  about  the  average.  A  storiette  ranges  from  600  to 
1000.  These  space  limits  tend  to  fix  certain  qualities.  As  a 
rule,  (1)  the  plot  is  single;  (2)  the  characters  are  few; 
(3)  the  setting  is  not  changed;  and  (4)  the  emotional  effect 
upon  the  reader  is  in  a  single  tone — that  is,  humorous,  or 
pathetic,  or  tragic,  or  romantic,  or  grotesque,  or  exciting. 

The  modern  short  story  tends  to  be  episodic  and  dramatic. 
The  episode  may  be  little  more  than  an  anecdote,  a  mystery 
or  a  problem  solved,  an  amusing  or  a  dramatic  crisis  passed 
without  greatly  affecting  the  lives  of  the  people  involved.  Or 
it  may  contain  the  essence  of  a  biography,  concentrated  and 
exemplified  in  a  short  series  of  events.  In  either  case,  it  must 
be  made  to  "sound  true."  It  may  be  wildly  romantic,  utterly 
impossible;  but  if  it  is  to  "get  over,"  it  must  be  so  supported 
by  evidence  of  actuality  that  for  the  time  the  reader  is  con- 
tent to  accept  it  as  credible. 

The  material  for  a  short  story  may  be  found  to-day  in  any 
street,  in  any  house,  in  any  life.  Every  year  the  magazines 
exploit  new  material.  We  have  had  the  New  England  spin- 
ster, the  desperado,  the  cowboy,  the  Jewish  clothing  dealer, 
the  commercial  traveler,  the  Chinese  laundryman,  the 
grafter,  the  crook,  the  sailor,  the  Pennsylvania  Dutchman — 
a  hundred  phases  of  the  amazingly  complex  life  of  our  coun- 
try; and  those  still  untouched  are  innumerable.  But  there 
are,  in  general,  four  kinds  of  sources  of  material: 
303 


304  THE  WRITING  OF  ENGLISH 

(1)  An    accidental   plot    in    life,   which   needs    only   re- 
shaping; 

(2)  A  character  which  suggests  a  plot  as  likely  to  be 
associated  with  it; 

(3)  A  place   which   suggests   the   occurrence    of   certain 
events; 

(4)  An  idea  or  principle  governing  human  life,  which  can 
be  exemplified  in  story  form. 

Sometimes  we  find  several  of  these  sources  together:  a  char- 
acter in  its  setting  with  a  partially  developed  plot  may  come 
into  our  experience;  it  may  even  typify  some  law  in  life  or 
principle  of  human  nature.  Conversely  we  may  begin  with 
an  idea  and  have  to  combine  plot,  characters,  and  setting 
from  three  different  sources.  This,  of  course,  is  far  more 
difficult  than  to  "see"  a  partially  constructed  story  in  the 
life  about  us. 

The  most  fruitful  source  of  plots  is  experience;  but  this 
may  be  supplemented  by  close  observation  of  other  lives, 
by  material  furnished  by  other  people  from  their  experience, 
by  wide  reading  in  all  sorts  of  books  that  stimulate  ideas, 
and  to  some  extent  from  newspapers — although  news  is,  by 
its  very  nature,  abnormal,  and  cannot  appeal  widely  as  being 
of  the  very  stuff  of  life.  Many  popular  stories  are  based  upon 
scientific  or  psychological  facts  or  theories. 

The  successful  short  story  to-day  must  grow  out  of  com- 
mon experience,  but  must  find  something  new  to  say  about 
it.  The  theme  must  be  universal.  The  old  problems  in  love 
and  war  become  fresh  when  they  are  placed  in  new  scenes, 
or  colored  by  their  environment  in  the  business  world. 
Further,  each  magazine  has  its  own  readers,  and  its  constantly 
varying  policy,  which  is  determined  by  the  need  of  supplying 
their  tastes  with  new  and  up-to-date  material.  For  commer- 
cial success,  it  is  necessary  to  follow  closely  the  magazines  for 
which  you  think  you  are  suited;  and  to  keep  your  material 
in  line  with  what  they  publish. 


THE  SHORT  STORY  305 

ASSIGNMENT 

1.  State  the  probable  source  of  ten  of  the  following  stories  (i.  e., 
in  plot,  accidental  or  invented;  in  character;  in  setting;  in  idea  or 
principle) ;  try  to  read  some  of  those  with  which  you  are  not  familiar: 
Irving's  Rip  Van  Winkle;  Foe's  The  Purloined  Letter,  The  Gold  Bug; 
Dickens's  A  Christmas  Carol;  Kipling's  The  Brushwood  Boy,  The  Man 
Who  Was,  The  Bridge-builders,  Wireless,  The  Night  Mail,  "  They  "; 
Conrad's  Youth,  Heart  of  Darkness;  Stevenson's  Markheim,  A  Lodg- 
ing for  the  Night,  The  Sire  de  Maletroit's  Door;  De  Maupassant's 
The  Necklace;  Morgan  Robertson's  Fifty  Fathoms  Down,  From  the 
Main  Top;  Hudson's  El  Ombu;  Mrs.  Wharton's  The  Legend,  The 
Daunt  Diana,  Kerfol,  Xingu;  Mrs.  Gerould's  The  Years,  The  Case 
of  Paramore;  Mrs.  Freeman's  A  New  England  Nun,  A  Humble 
Romance,  Louisa,  The  Revolt  of  "Mother";  Miss  Jewett's  The  White 
Heron;  W.  W.  Jacobs 's  A  Change  of  Treatment,  Contraband  of  War, 
In  Borrowed  Plumes;  Merrick's  The  Bishop's  Comedy,  The  Man  Who 
Understood   Women,    The  Suicides  in  the  Rue  Sombre;  Ambrose 
Bierce's  A  Horseman  in  the  Sky,  The  Middle  Toe  of  Hie  Right  Foot; 
O.  Henry's  A  Municipal  Report,  An  Unfinished  Story;  Algernon 
Blackwopd's  John  Silence;  Robert  Herrick's  The  Master  of  the  Inn; 
Wells's  The  Man  Who  Could  Work  Miracles,  The  Time  Machine. 

2.  Examine  the  current  number  of  a  magazine  assigned  to  you, 
to  discover  what  you  can  about  its  fiction  and  its  readers.    In  class 
discussion  the  dozen  leading  magazines  should  be  covered. 

3.  Bring  to  class  an  idea  for  a  plot.    It  may  be  based  upon  your 
own  experience,  or  upon  something  that  you  have  heard,  or  upon 
some  scientific  fact  or  principle.    After  class  discussion  sum  up,  in 
a  few  words  each,  the  plots  that  seem  to  work  out  best,  and  file  away 
for  future  use  two  or  three  that  attract  you. 

2.  DEVELOPMENT 

As  soon  as  you  have  your  general  plot  outline,  you  will 
probably  ask  yourself:  Where  shall  I  begin?  Where  shall  I 
end?  By  what  kinds  of  episodes  shall  I  make  the  story  move 
from  its  beginning  to  its  end? 

If  your  story  is  realistic,  and  involves  no  strain  upon  the 
reader's  credulity,  the  best  way  to  begin  is  to  plunge  at  once 
into  an  interesting  situation,  and  to  get  the  story  moving  as 


306  THE  WRITING  OF  ENGLISH 

quickly  as  possible.  But  if  your  story  is  unusual,  romantic, 
startling,  your  first  task  is  to  gain  the  reader's  confidence; 
and  this  you  do  by  means  of  an  introduction,  in  which  you 
suggest,  in  every  way  you  can,  reasons  why  the  story  should 
be  believed.  One  good  way  is  to  begin  with  extremely  matter- 
of-fact  details  and  by  degrees  to  lead  away  from  them  to 
the  incredible.  Mr.  Wells's  The  Man  Who  Could  Work 
Miracles  is  a  good  example  of  this  method. 

From  the  opening  sentence  you  must  have  in  mind  a 
climax  as  goal  toward  which  every  phase  of  the  story  is  kept 
moving.  No  descriptions,  no  episodes,  no  dialogues,  however 
interesting  in  themselves,  should  be  admitted  unless  they  can 
be  seen  to  push  the  story  on  toward  this  climax.  And  the 
end  should  follow  as  soon  as  possible  after  the  climax;  indeed, 
the  anecdotal  type  of  short  story  is  often  so  telescoped  that 
the  climax  is  in  the  last  sentence.  In  this  case  it  usually 
involves  a  surprise.  For  instance,  in  O.  Henry's  A  Little 
Speck  in  Garnered  Fruit,  the  plot  hinges  upon  a  young  hus- 
band's efforts  to  get  his  bride  a  peach  which  she  had  de- 
manded out  of  season.  He  is  everywhere  offered  oranges; 
but  finally  succeeds  in  getting  the  coveted  fruit.  The  climax 
and  surprise  come  in  the  last  sentence  in  which  she  calmly 
tells  him  that  after  all  she  would  rather  have  had  an  orange! 

In  general,  it  is  a  good  plan  to  begin  without  preamble 
whenever  you  can,  and  to  stop  immediately  after  the  climax. 

The  episodes  by  which  the  story  is  developed  must  be  so 
logically  and  closely  related  that  one  seems  to  grow  out  of 
another;  all  should  be  such  as  might  have  happened  to  the 
characters  chosen;  and  all  should  be  such  as  might  have 
occurred  in  the  setting  chosen.  It  is  this  unification  of  plot, 
characters,  and  setting  which  gives  the  impression  of  reality. 
You  will  perhaps  realize  this  better  after  you  have  studied  the 
famous  story  which  Guy  de  Maupassant  made  about  a  piece 
of  string.  But  before  you  read  it,  answer  the  following 
questions: 


THE  SHORT  STORY  307 

1.  If  you  saw  a  rheumatic  old  man  stoop  to  pick  up  some- 
thing from  the  road,  what  should  you  infer? 

2.  If  he  tried  to  keep  you  from  seeing  what  it  was,  would 
your  inference  be  strengthened? 

3.  If  you  heard  that  a  pocketbook  had  just  been  lost,  how 
would  your  inference  be  affected? 

4.  If  you  knew  that  the  man  was  a  tricky  old  body,  and 
if  you  had  a  grudge  against  him,  how  would  your  opinion 
be  affected?  ' 

5.  Should  you  believe  him  if  he  declared  that  all  he  picked 
up  was  a  piece  of  string — and  showed  the  string? 

6.  What  would  be  the  effect  upon  him  of  the  unjust  sus- 
picion that  he  had  picked  up  the  pocketbook? 

7.  If  the  pocketbook  was  found  by  someone  else  and  re- 
turned, would  the  old  man  necessarily  have  been  cleared? 
What  might  have  been  supposed?     Among  what  kind  of 
people  only  could  such  continued  suspicion  have  been  har- 
bored? 

Because  it  is  necessary  to  show  the  narrow  lives  of  the 
Norman  peasants,  and  their  hard,  suspicious  natures,  De 
Maupassant  has  a  much  longer  introduction  than  is  now 
usual;  but  when  the  story  begins,  it  moves  rapidly  and  with- 
out a  break  to  its  climax  and  end. 


THE  PIECE  OF  STRING 

On  all  the  roads  about  Goderville  the  peasants  and  their  wives 
were  coming  to  town;  for  it  was  market  day.  The  men  walked  at 
a  steady  pace,  the  whole  body  thrown  forward  with  each  swing  of 
the  long,  crooked  legs.  They  were  deformed  by  heavy  work,  by 
bending  over  the  plow,  which  raises  the  left  shoulder  and  distorts 
the  frame,  and  by  reaping,  which  makes  the  knees  spread  in  order 
to  get  a  solid  footing, — by  all  the  slow  and  painful  toil  of  the  coun- 
try. Their  starched  blue  blouses,  as  glossy  as  if  they  had  been 
varnished,  trimmed  on  the  collar  and  cuffs  with  a  little  pattern  in 
white  thread,  blew  about  their  bony  frames  like  balloons  about  to 
fly  away,  with  a  head,  two  arms  and  two  feet  sticking  out  of  each. 


308          ^       THE  WRITING  OF  ENGLISH 

Some  of  the  men  led  by  a  rope  a  cow  or  a  calf.  And  their  wives, 
coming  behind,  would  beat  the  flanks  of  the  animals  with  leafy 
branches  to  make  them  move  faster.  The  women  carried  on  their 
arms  large  baskets  from  which  the  heads  of  chickens  or  ducks 
peeped  out  now  and  then.  And  they  walked  with  a  shorter,  quicker 
step  than  their  husbands.  Their  straight,  wizened  figures  were 
covered  with  scanty  little  shawls  pinned  over  their  flat  bosoms; 
and  their  heads  were  bound  with  white  linen  that  hid  the  hair, 
above  which  they  wore  caps. 

Sometimes  a  country  cart  went  by,  drawn  by  a  stiff-jointed  farm 
horse,  jolting  at  every  step  two  men  sitting  together;  and  the 
woman  in  the  bottom  of  the  cart  would  hold  on  to  the  side  to  keep 
herself  steady. 

In  the  marketplace  at  Goderville  there  was  a  great  crowd,  an 
indistinguishable  mass  of  men  and  beasts.  The  horns  of  cattle,  the 
tall  beaver  hats  of  rich  peasants,  and  the  caps  of  peasant  women 
rose  above  the  level  of  the  throng.  And  the  clamor  of  voices,  sharp 
and  shrill,  made  a  continuous  wild  roar,  dominated  now  and  then 
by  a  great  laugh  from  the  solid  chest  of  some  gay  country  fellow, 
or  the  long  lowing  of  a  cow  tethered  to  the  wall  of  a  house. 

It  all  smelled  of  the  stable.  Milk  and  manure,  hay  and  sweat, 
blended  into  that  terrible  sour  smell  of  man  and  beast  together, 
which  is  peculiar  to  men  of  the  fields. 

Maitre  Hauchecorne,  of  Breaute,  had  just  arrived  at  Goderville, 
and  was  walking  toward  the  marketplace  when  he  noticed  on  the 
ground  a  little  piece  of  string.  Economical  as  a  true  Norman  always 
is,  he  thought  anything  worth  picking  up  that  might  be  of  use; 
and  he  stooped  with  a  great  effort,  for  he  suffered  with  rheumatism. 
He  picked  up  from  the  ground  the  bit  of  thin  string,  and  was  pro- 
ceeding to  roll  it  up  with  care  when  he  saw  Maitre  Malandain,  the 
harness-maker,  on  his  doorstep  watching  him.  They  had  once  had 
some  words  about  a  halter  which  had  left  them  both  irritated  and 
resentful.  Maitre  Hauchecorne  felt  a  kind  of  shame  at  being  seen 
by  his  enemy  to  pick  up  out  of  the  mud  a  bit  of  string.  He  hurriedly 
concealed  his  find  under  his  blouse,  then  in  his  breeches  pocket; 
and  afterward  pretended  still  to  be  looking  on  the  ground  for  some- 
thing that  he  could  not  find.  At  last  he  went  on  toward  the  market, 
his  head  bent  forward,  and  his  body  doubled  up  with  rheumatic 
pains. 

He  was  soon  lost  in  the  shouting,  slow-moving  crowd,  swayed 
this  way  and  that  in  its  interminable  bargaining.  The  peasants 
would  examine  the  cows,  would  go  away,  and  then  return,  puzzled, 


THE  SHORT  STORY  309 

always  afraid  of  being  taken  in,  not  daring  to  make  up  their  minds, 
but  watching  every  minute  the  eyes  of  the  seller,  and  trying  to  find 
out  how  he  was  cheating  them  and  what  was  wrong  with  the  animal. 

The  women  had  placed  their  great  baskets  at  their  feet,  and  had 
pulled  out  the  poultry,  which  now  lay  on  the  ground,  tied  by  the 
legs,  with  frightened  eyes  and  scarlet  combs. 

With  assumed  indifference  and  impassive  faces,  they  would  listen 
to  offers  but  stick  to  their  prices;  or  perhaps  suddenly  deciding  to 
accept  the  bargainer's  terms,  would  call  after  him  as  he  was  slowly 
moving  away: 

"All  right,  Mait'  Anthime!    They  are  yours." 

Then  little  by  little  the  marketplace  thinned  out,  and  when  the 
midday  bell  struck,  those  who  lived  at  a  distance  poured  into  the 
inns. 

At  Jourdain's  the  big  dining-room  was  full  of  people  eating,  while 
the  great  courtyard  was  full  of  all  sorts  of  vehicles — wagons,  gigs, 
carts,  tilburys,  nameless  conveyances,  yellow  with  mud,  mis-shapen, 
patched  up,  with  their  shafts  in  the  air  like  two  arms,  or  tilted  up 
behind  with  their  noses  in  the  ground. 

Over  against  the  people  seated  at  the  table  the  immense  fireplace, 
full  of  clear  flame,  threw  a  fierce  heat  on  the  backs  of  those  on  the 
right.  Three  spits  were  turning,  loaded  with  chickens,  pigeons, 
and  saddles  of  mutton;  and  the  delicious  smell  of  roast  meat  and  of 
gravy  trickling  over  crisp  brown  skin,  which  spread  from  the  hearth, 
kindled  mirth  and  made  mouths  to  water. 

All  the  aristocracy  of  the  plough  were  eating  at  the  house  of  Mait' 
Jourdain,  innkeeper  and  horsetrader,  a  rogue  with  the  shekels. 

The  dishes  passed  round  and  were  emptied  along  with  jugs  of 
yellow  cider.  Everyone  talked  of  business — what  he  had  bought 
and  sold.  The  state  of  the  crops  was  discussed:  the  weather  was 
right  for  green  stuff  but  a  trifle  damp  for  the  wheat. 

All  at  once  the  roll  of  a  drum  was  heard  in  the  courtyard  before 
the  house.  In  a  second,  everybody,  except  a  few  indifferent  fellows, 
jumped  up  and  ran  to  the  door  or  the  windows,  with  his  mouth  still 
full  and  his  napkin  in  his  hand. 

When  the  town  crier  had  finished  his  tattoo,  he  announced  in  his 
harsh  voice,  with  all  the  stops  in  the  wrong  places: 

"  Be  it  known  to  the  inhabitants  of  Goderville,  and  in  general  to 
all — persons  who  were  at  the  market,  that  there  was  lost  this 
morning,  on  the  Beuzeville  road,  between — nine  and  ten  o'clock,  a 
black  leather  pocketbook,  containing  five  hundred  francs  and  some 
business  papers.  The  finder  is  requested  to  return  it — to  the 


310  THE  WRITING  OF  ENGLISH 

town-hall  at  once,  or  to  Maitre  Fortune  Houlbreque,  of  Manneville. 
He  will  receive  twenty  francs  reward." 

Then  the  crier  went  away;  but  the  deadened  sound  of  his  drum 
and  his  faint  voice  could  be  heard  once  again  in  the  distance. 

Then  this  affair  was  talked  of,  with  much  weighing  of  the  chances 
whether  Maitre  Houlbreque  would  recover  his  pocketbook  or  not. 
So  dinner  was  finished. 

They  were  having  coffee  when  the  police  sergeant  appeared  on 
the  threshold  and  asked:  "Is  Maitre  Hauchecorne,  of  Breaute, 
here?" 

Maitre  Hauchecorne,  who  was  sitting  at  the  far  end  of  the  table, 
answered:  "Here  I  am." 

The  sergeant  went  on:  "Maitre  Hauchecorne,  will  you  kindly 
come  with  me  to  the  town-hall?  His  Honor,  the  mayor,  wishes  to 
speak  to  you." 

The  peasant,  surprised  and  uneasy,  swallowed  his  liqueur  at  a 
gulp,  rose,  and  more  bent  even  than  in  the  morning — for  the  first 
steps  after  sitting  a  while  were  always  particularly  hard — followed 
the  sergeant,  repeating:  "Here  I  am.  Here  I  am." 

The  mayor  sat  in  an  armchair,  waiting  for  him.  He  was  a  heavy, 
solemn  man,  full  of  pompous  phrases. 

"Maitre  Hauchecorne,"  he  said,  "this  morning,  on  the  Beuzeville 
road,  some  one  saw  you  pick  up  the  pocketbook  lost  by  Maitre 
Houlbreque,  of  Manneville." 

The  peasant  stared  speechless  at  the  mayor,  terrified  at  the  sus- 
picion which  had  fallen  upon  him,  he  knew  not  why. 

"Me?  me?    Saw  me  pick  up  that  pocketbook?" 

"Yes,  you." 

"Upon  my  word,  I  never  knew  nothing  about  it  at  all." 

"They  saw  you." 

"They  saw  me?  me?    Who  was  it  who  saw  me?" 

"M.  Malandain,  the  harness-maker." 

Then  the  old  man  remembered  and  understood,  and  reddened 
with  fury:  "Ah,  he  saw  me — that  villain?  What  he  saw  me  pick  up, 
your  Honor,  was — look  here — this  little  bit  of  string." 

And  fumbling  in  his  pocket,  he  drew  out  the  little  piece  of 
cord. 

But  the  mayor  shook  his  head,  incredulous. 

"You  are  not  going  to  make  me  believe,  Maitre  Hauchecorne, 
that  M.  Malandain,  who  is  a  reliable  man,  took  this  string  for  a 
pocketbook." 


THE  SHORT  STORY  311 

The  peasant,  in  a  rage,  lifted  his  hand  and  spat  by  way  of  attest- 
ing his  honesty,  repeating: 

"All  the  same,  it  is  God's  truth,  nothing  but  the  truth,  your 
Honor.  Here — by  my  soul  and  my  salvation,  I  swear  it." 

The  mayor  continued:  "After  picking  up  the  thing,  you  even 
continued  to  look  about  in  the  mud  to  see  whether  some  of  the 
money  had  not  dropped  out  of  it." 

The  poor  fellow  was  choking  with  indignation  and  fear. 

"How  can  they  tell!  .  .  .  how  can  they  tell  .  .  .  lies  like  that  to 
ruin  an  honest  man!  .  .  .  How  can  they.  .  .  !" 

It  was  useless  to  protest;  he  was  not  believed. 

He  was  confronted  with  M.  Malandain,  who  repeated  and  held 
to  his  statement.  They  railed  at  each  other  for  an  hour.  At  his 
own  demand  Maitre  Hauchecorne  was  searched;  but  nothing  was 
found  on  him. 

Finally,  the  mayor,  much  perplexed,  dismissed  him  with  the 
warning  that  he  was  going  to  inform  the  public  prosecutor,  and 
ask  for  a  warrant. 

The  news  had  spread.  When  the  old  man  left  the  town-hall,  he 
was  surrounded  and  questioned,  seriously  or  jeeringly.  But  with 
all  the  curiosity,  there  was  no  indignation.  He  tried  to  tell  his 
story  about  the  string.  They  did  not  believe  him;  they  simply 
laughed. 

He  went  on  his  way,  stopped  by  everyone,  himself  stopping  all 
his  acquaintances,  repeating  again  and  again  his  tale  and  his  prot- 
estations, and  showing  his  pockets  turned  inside  out  to  prove  that 
there  was  nothing  in  them. 

They  said  to  him:  "Get  along  with  you,  you  old  rascal!" 

He  grew  angry,  exasperated,  feverish,  desperate  at  not  being  be- 
lieved; and  not  knowing  what  to  do,  he  kept  telling  his  story  over 
and  over  again. 

Night  came.  He  had  to  go  home.  He  set  out  with  three  neigh- 
bors to  whom  he  pointed  out  the  place  where  he  had  found  the  bit 
of  string;  and  all  along  the  road  he  talked  of  what  had  happened  to 
him. 

That  evening  he  went  all  round  the  village  of  Breaut£  for  the 
express  purpose  of  telling  everybody;  but  nobody  believed  him. 
He  was  ill  of  it  all  night  long. 

About  one  o'clock  the  next  afternoon,  Marius  Paumelle,  a  farm 
hand  of  Maitre  Breton,  market-gardener  at  Ymauville,  returned 
the  pocketbook  with  its  contents  to  Maitre  Houlbreque,  of  Manne- 
ville.  In  fact,  the  man  declared  that  he  had  found  it  on  the  road, 


312  THE  WRITING  OF  ENGLISH 

but  being  unable  to  read,  had  carried  it  home  and  given  it  to  his 
master. 

The  news  spread  through  the  neighborhood;  and  Maitre  Hauche- 
corne  was  told.  He  immediately  made  the  rounds  and  began  to 
tell  his  story  again,  together  with  its  outcome.  He  was  triumph- 
ant. 

"What  made  me  feel  bad,"  said  he,  "was  not  so  much  the  thing 
itself,  you  understand,  as  the  lie.  There  is  nothing  that  hurts  you 
so  much  as  to  be  in  disgrace  because  of  a  lie." 

All  day  long  he  talked  of  his  experience.  He  told  it  to  people 
passing  along  the  roads,  to  people  drinking  at  the  tavern,  to  people 
as  they  came  out  of  church  the  next  Sunday.  He  stopped  strangers 
to  tell  them  about  it.  His  mind  was  at  rest  about  it  now;  and  still 
there  was  something  that  worried  him,  although  he  could  not  say 
exactly  what  it  was.  People  seemed  to  be  amused  while  they  lis- 
tened to  him.  They  did  not  seem  to  be  convinced.  He  seemed  to 
feel  them  talking  behind  his  back. 

On  Tuesday  of  the  following  week,  he  went  to  Goderville  to  the 
market,  for  no  reason  in  the  world  except  the  need  of  relating  his 
case. 

Malandain,  standing  in  his  doorway,  began  to  laugh  as  he  saw 
him  go  by.  Why? 

He  began  to  tell  a  farmer  of  Criquetot,  who  would  not  let  him 
finish,  but  gave  him  a  dig  in  the  pit  of  his  stomach,  cried  out  in  his 
face:  "Get  along  with  you,  you  big  rascal!" — and  turned  on  his 
heel. 

Maitre  Hauchecorne  stood  without  a  word,  more  and  more  un- 
easy. Why  had  he  been  called  a  "big  rascal"? 

As  he  sat  at  table  at  Jourdain's,  he  tried  again  to  explain  the 
matter;  but  a  horse-dealer  from  Montivilliers  shouted  at  him: 
"Come,  come,  you  old  scamp!  I  know  all  about  that — your  piece 
of  string!" 

Hauchecorne  stammered:  "Seeing  that  they  found  it — that 
pocketbook!" 

But  the  other  man  retorted:  "Shut  up,  daddy,  sometimes  there's 
one  to  find  it,  and  one  to  bring  it  back.  Unseen's  unknown;  I've 
got  you!" 

The  peasant  sat  choking;  at  last  he  understood.  They  accused 
him  of  sending  back  the  pocketbook  by  a  pal — an  accomplice. 
When  he  tried  to  protest,  the  whole  table  roared.  He  could  not 
finish  his  dinner,  and  in  a  chorus  of  jeers  he  went  away. 

He  went  home,  ashamed  and  indignant,  stifled  with  rage,  with 


THE  SHORT  STORY  313 

dismay,  the  more  dumbfounded  in  that,  with  his  Norman  cunning, 
he  was  capable  of  doing  what  he  was  accused  of,  and  even  of  boasting 
about  it  as  a  good  trick.  It  seemed  to  him  in  his  confused  state  of 
mind  that  it  would  be  impossible  to  prove  his  innocence,  his  trick- 
iness  being  so  well-known.  And  he  was  struck  to  the  heart  by  the 
injustice  of  the  suspicion. 

Then  he  began  once  more  to  relate  his  mishap,  making  his  story 
longer  every  day,  adding  each  time  new  reasons,  more  vigorous 
protests,  oaths  more  solemn  than  he  was  aware,  which  he  thought 
up  in  his  hours  of  solitude,  his  mind  obsessed  solely  by  the  story  of 
the  string.  But  the  more  complicated  he  made  his  defense,  and  the 
more  subtle  his  arguments,  the  less  he  was  believed. 

"That  is  the  way  a  liar  talks,"  they  said  behind  his  back. 

He  felt  this,  and  it  preyed  upon  his  mind;  he  wore  himself  out  in 
his  useless  efforts.  He  grew  visibly  weaker. 

It  became  a  joke  to  get  him  to  tell  about  "  The  Piece  of  String," 
just  as  a  soldier  who  has  been  through  a  campaign  is  made  to  talk 
about  his  battles. 

But  his  spirit  was  struck  at  its  root,  and  he  gradually  failed. 
Toward  the  end  of  December  he  took  to  his  bed,  and  he  died  early 
in  January.  In  the  delirium  of  the  death  agony,  he  still  declared  his 
innocence,  saying  again  and  again: 

"A  little  bit  of  string  ...  a  little  bit  of  string  .  .  .  see,  here  it 
is,  your  Honor." 

As  you  see,  this  story  moves  with  unbroken  logic  from  the 
unstable  situation  created  by  the  picking  up  of  the  string  to 
the  inevitable  outcome,  the  old  man's  death.  The  plot  com- 
plication grows  out  of  his  character,  and  the  character  of 
Malandain  and  of  all  the  people  in  the  neighborhood.  This 
is,  of  course,  the  type  of  story  in  which  a  life  history  is  summed 
up.  Most  of  the  stories  of  Howells,  and  James,  and  of  Mrs. 
Wharton,  Mrs.  Gerould,  Mrs.  Freeman,  and  Miss  Jewett 
are  of  this  kind. 

In  the  anecdotal  type,  which  may  be  a  story  of  mystery 
or  adventure,  or  an  amusing  or  dramatic  crisis  in  life,  the 
plot  complication  depends  much  more  upon  circumstances. 
In  mystery  stories  especially,  setting  is  likely  to  be  ma- 
chinery. 


314  THE  WRITING  OF  ENGLISH 

ASSIGNMENT 

1.  Write  a  careful  abstract  in  150-200  words  of  the  incidents  in 
The  Piece  of  String.     Discuss  in  class  the  closeness  of  their  relation- 
ship. 

2.  Copy  the  opening  and  concluding  paragraphs  of  six  stories  by 
good  writers.    Discuss  in  class  what  the  intervening  episodes  may 
have  been.    Do  not  take  part  in  the  discussion  in  cases  where  you 
have  read  the  story. 

3.  Write  a  story  of  about  500  words  developing  the  incidents  sug- 
gested by  the  following  opening : 

"It  was  half  past  twelve  in  the  morning  and  a  cold  night.  I  was 
almost  frozen.  I  took  off  my  shoes  and  walked  to  and  fro  upon  the 
sand,  barefoot  and  beating  my  breast  with  infinite  weariness.  There 
was  no  sound  of  man  or  cattle.  Not  a  cock  crew.  I  heard  only  the 
surf  breaking  in  the  distance.  By  the  sea  that  hour  in  the  morning, 
and  in  a  place  so  desert-like  and  lonesome,  I  had  a  kind  of  fear. 

In  all  the  books  which  I  have  read  of  people  cast  away,  they  had 
either  their  pockets  full  of  tools,  or  a  chest  of  things  thrown  up  on 
the  beach  with  them.  I  had  nothing  in  my  pockets  but  money  and 
Aleck's  silver  button." — Robert  Louis  Stevenson. 

4.  Bring  to  class  a  100-word  abstract  of  a  magazine  story,  in- 
dicating the  climax.    Discuss  the  choice  and  treatment  of  episodes. 

5.  On  the  basis  of  the  various  experiences  with  ghosts  which 
have  been  told  to  you  as  authentic,  outline  in  class,  each  member 
contributing,  a  plot  for  a  ghost  story.     Try  to  make  it  different 
from  the  usual  type. 

3.  POINT  OF  VIEW 

Every  short  story  must  be  written  from  a  single,  clearly- 
defined  point  of  view.  It  may  be  that  of  the  hero  or  heroine, 
or  of  some  minor  character,  or  of  the  author  who  assumes  for 
the  time  the  power  to  know  everything  that  is  done,  said,  or 
thought,  within  the  limits  of  his  material. 

There  are  two  ways  of  telling  a  story  from  the  point  of 
view  of  the  hero  or  heroine:  One  of  the  principal  characters 
may  tell  the  story  in  the  first  person;  or  the  author  may  so 
identify  himself  with  a  principal  character  that  the  story  is 
seen  from  that  person's  point  of  view. 


THE  SHORT  STORY  315 

Both  these  methods  involve  the  difficulty  that  one  person 
cannot  be  supposed  to  know  many  details  that  the  reader 
must  learn  in  the  development  of  the  plot.  Hence  there  is  no 
way  of  introducing  such  details  without  changing  the  point 
of  view.  The  autobiographical  method  involves  the  further 
difficulty  in  characterization  that  the  speaker  must  resort  to 
indirect  methods  to  awaken  the  reader's  interest;  self-praise 
is  impossible. 

The  use  of  a  minor  character  meets  the  second  difficulty, 
in  that  the  narrator  can  be  an  admirer  of  the  hero,  as,  for 
instance,  Watson  in  the  Sherlock  Holmes  stories.  But  a 
minor  character  is  in  no  better  position  than  the  hero  or 
heroine  to  know  all  the  plot.  For  this  reason  he  is  particularly 
useful  as  narrator  in  a  mystery  story,  where  the  reader  shares 
his  bewilderment  until  at  the  end  the  author  introduces 
some  new  element  that  explains  everything. 

The  fourth  method — that  of  assumed  omniscience — is 
much  easier  to  manage;  but  it  does  not  have  the  convincing 
effect  of  coming  straight  from  life  that  the  others  have. 

In  some  cases,  the  point  of  view  is  determined  by  the  mate- 
rial ;  and  usually  one  is  decidedly  to  be  preferred  to  all  others. 
For  instance,  in  Mr.  Jacobs's  A  Change  of  Treatment,  the  plot 
is  this:  a  sea  captain  afflicts  his  crew  with  his  amateur  knowl- 
edge of  medicine.  One  of  the  crew  happens  upon  a  second- 
hand medical  book  and  learns  from  it  a  list  of  symptoms 
which  he  reels  off  to  the  skipper  and  is  sent  to  bed.  Several 
others  follow  his  example.  But  while  they  are  enjoying  the 
delicacies  of  invalids,  the  mate,  who  sees  through  their  trick, 
mixes  a  medicine  out  of  all  the  horrible  things  he  can  think 
of,  and  persuades  the  captain  to  let  him  dose  the  men  with 
it.  The  men  get  well  abruptly !  This  story  is  told  by  a  night- 
watchman,  who  had  been  one  of  the  crew.  He  was  thus  in  a 
position  to  know  what  the  men  did,  and  what  the  mate 
did;  and  from  the  beginning  he  lets  the  reader  into  the 
joke. 


316  THE  WRITING  OF  ENGLISH 

ASSIGNMENT 

1.  What  is  the  point  of  view  in  The  Piece  of  String?    Retell  the 
story  orally  from  the  two  other  points  of  view. 

2.  List  five  short  stories  that  you  remember,  and  write  opposite 
each  the  point  of  view.    Suggest  for  class  discussion  other  possible 
points  of  view  for  each,  and  decide  why  they  were  rejected  by  the 
author. 

3.  Choose  one  of  the  following  stories  and  outline  it  as  changed 
by  substituting  the  point  of  view  suggested  below: 

(1)  Stevenson's  The  Sire  de  Maletroit's  Door — the  girl's  point  of 
view; 

(2)  Miss  Wilkins's  A  New  England  Nun — Dagget's  point  of  view; 

(3)  Irving's  Rip  Van  Winkle — Rip's  point  of  view; 

(4)  O.  Henry's  A  Municipal  Report — the  negro's  point  of  view; 

(5)  Kipling's  The  Man  Who  Would  be  King — the   omniscient 
point  of  view. 

If  you  have  not  read  any  of  these  stories,  substitute  another  after 
consultation  with  your  instructor  as  to  choice  and  change  hi  point 
of  view. 

4.  Decide  which  of  the  stories  listed  on  p.  305  could  not  have 
been  written  from  any  other  point  of  view  than  the  one  chosen. 

4.  CHARACTERS 

In  a  short  story  the  characters  should  be  as  few  as  pos- 
sible, and  sharply  distinguished  from  one  another.  The 
reader  does  not  have  time  either  to  learn  to  know  more  than 
half  a  dozen  persons,  or  to  make  fine  distinctions  among 
characters. 

A  short  story  usually  needs  one  or  two  persons  for  whose 
fortunes  the  reader's  sympathies  are  sought  and  one  or  two 
who  create  the  obstacles  in  the  plot.  If  minor  characters  are 
needed  for  any  purpose,  they  should  either  be  limited  to  two 
or  three,  or  should  form  a  group — a  sort  of  chorus — of  which 
the  members  need  not  be  described  as  individuals. 

The  ideal  in  characterization  is  that  every  touch  should 
at  the  same  time  further  the  plot.  As  in  life,  action  should 
grow  out  of  character,  and  character  should  be  revealed  in 


THE  SHORT  STORY  317 

action.  It  is  not  necessary  to  introduce  a  person  with  an 
explanation;  let  him  appear  as  a  character  appears  on  the 
stage  and  explain  himself,  as  the  story  progresses,  by  his 
words  and  actions,  by  his  look  and  manner  in  various 
circumstances,  by  his  effect  on  other  people,  and  by  the 
effect  of  other  people  on  him. 

In  so  far  as  description  of  personal  appearance  and  direct 
exposition  of  character  are  necessary,  they  should  be  intro- 
duced as  incidental  touches,  mainly  in  the  form  of  phrases 
or  subordinate  clauses,  with  only  here  and  there  a  short  sen- 
tence; they  should  rarely,  if  ever,  be  used  in  solid  blocks. 
These  give  at  best  a  confused  impression,  and  often  se- 
riously interfere  with  interest  by  stopping  the  movement  of 
the  story. 

The  one  essential  in  characterization  is,  that  the  people 
should  seem  alive.  Their  lifelikeness  will  depend  upon  two 
things:  the  accuracy  of  the  writer's  observations  of  details 
in  life  that  reveal  character;  and  the  degree  to  which  he  suc- 
ceeds in  projecting  his  own  personality  into  each  of  his  figures 
in  turn  so  that  the  details  combine  into  a  unified  conception. 
It  is  doubtful  whether  any  character  is  ever  drawn  from  life 
without  alteration;  in  most  cases,  a  character  is  a  composite 
in  which  the  writer  builds  upon  his  own  basic  understanding 
of  human  nature,  derived  from  study  of  himself,  a  combina- 
tion of  special  qualities  which  he  obtains  from  observation 
of  other  people.  These  qualities  may  all  come  from  one 
person;  in  that  case  the  character  is  said  to  be  drawn  from 
life.  Or  they  may  be  taken  from  several  sources  and  welded 
by  imagination.  In  such  a  case  the  writer  must  continually 
ask  himself,  not  "What  did  this  man  actually  do  under  such 
circumstances?"  but  "What  would  such  a  person  as  I  have 
in  mind  do  under  such  circumstances?"  Both  his  own  expe- 
rience and  his  observation  of  others  will  help  him  to  decide. 

In  presenting  character,  remember  that  direct  exposition 
(pp.  213f .)  should  be  avoided  whenever  some  indirect  method 


318  THE  WRITING  OF  ENGLISH 

can  be  made  to  do  the  work.    The  following  suggestions  may 
be  useful: 

1.  Try  in  the  first  place  to  make  your  principal  characters 
such  as  would  credibly  become  involved  in  the  action  of  the 
story.     If  Hauchecorne  had  not  been  economical,  he  would 
not  have  picked  up  the  string;  if  he  had  not  been  tricky,  the 
suspicion  would  not  have  clung  to  him. 

2.  In  every  episode  needed  for  the  plot,  ask  yourself:  Does 
this  show  character?     Can  it  be  made  to  show  character? 
Hauchecorne  would  not  have  got  into  trouble  if  Malandain 
had  not  seen  him;  true,  but  if  he  had  not  been  the  kind  of 
man  he  was,  he  would  not  have  minded  having  Malandain 
see  him,  and  he  would  not  have  acted  in  the  manner  that 
roused  his  enemy's  suspicion. 

3.  In  relating  an  episode,  remember  that  there  are  innu- 
merable ways  of  performing  the  same  action,  many  of  which 
reveal  character.    Try  to  keep  before  the  reader  manner  and 
gesture  as  well  as  action. 

4.  In  writing  dialogue  remember  that  people  are  judged 
both  by  what  they  say  and  by  their  way  of  saying  it. 

5.  The  effect  of  one  person  upon  another  is  especially 
useful  as  it  reveals  two  characters  at  once. 

Note  that  in  a  story  all  these  methods,  together  with 
bits  of  description  of  dress  and  personal  appearance,  are  com- 
monly found  in  combination,  so  that  it  is  only  by  analysis 
that  we  can  see  the  function  of  each  in  the  character  draw- 
ing. In  the  following  passage,  a  woman  has  become  a  typical 
"old  maid"  while  waiting  for  the  man  to  whom  she  is  en- 
gaged to  make  money  enough  for  them  to  marry.  She  has 
just  received  a  visit  from  him.  We  have  been  told  that  she 
wears  a  white  apron  for  company,  a  pink  one  when  she  is 
alone  sewing,  and  a  green  gingham  when  she  does  her  house- 
work: 

She  tied  on  the  pink,  then  the  green  apron,  picked  up  all  the 
scattered  treasures  (he  had  upset  her  workbasket)  and  replaced 


THE  SHORT  STORY  319 

them  in  her  workbasket,  and  straightened  the  rug.  Then  she  set 
the  lamp  on  the  floor,  and  began  sharply  examining  the  carpet. 
She  even  rubbed  her  fingers  over  it,  and  looked  at  them. 

"He's  tracked  in  a  good  deal  of  dust,"  she  murmured.  "I 
thought  he  must  have." 

Louisa  got  a  dust-pan  and  brush,  and  swept  Joe  Dagget's  track 
carefully. — Mary  E.  Willrins 

Earlier  in  the  same  story  a  little  incident  shows  their  effect 
upon  each  other,  and  the  impossibility  ~of  their  being  happy 
together: 

Presently  Dagget  began  fingering  the  books  on  the  table.  There 
was  a  square  red  autograph  album,  and  a  Young  Lady's  Gift-Book 
which  had  belonged  to  Louisa's  mother.  He  took  them  up  one 
after  the  other  and  opened  them;  then  laid  them  down  again,  the 
album  on  the  Gift-Book. 

Louisa  kept  eying  them  with  mild  uneasiness.  Finally,  she  rose 
and  changed  the  position  of  the  books,  putting  the  album  under- 
neath. That  was  the  way  they  had  been  arranged  in  the  first  place. 

Dagget  gave  an  awkward  little  laugh.  "Now  what  difference 
did  it  make  which  book  was  on  top?"  said  he. 

Louisa  looked  at  him  with  a  deprecating  smile.  "I  always  keep 
them  that  way,"  murmured  she. 

"You  do  beat  everything,"  said  Dagget,  trying  to  laugh  again. 
His  large  face  was  flushed. 

In  these  two  slight  incidents  we  have  the  character  of  the 
man  and  of  the  woman  shown  as  clearly  as  by  any 
possible  device. 

The  naming  of  characters  is  important.  Commonplace 
and  highly  romantic  names  should  alike  be  avoided.  It  is 
essential  that  the  name  should  sound  as  if  it  belonged  to  a 
real  person,  and  at  the  same  time  it  is  desirable  that  it  suggest 
rather  more  of  his  character  than  real  names  usually  do;  and 
the  two  parts  of  the  name  should  seem  to  belong  together. 
Sound,  rhythm,  and  suggestion  should  all  be  considered  in 
choosing  names.  For  instance,  "  Laura  Glyde"  could  not  be 
bettered  for  its  combination  of  the  three  qualities  as  a  name 
for  a  soulful  young  woman  who  talks  art  without  understand- 
ing what  she  says. 


320  THE  WRITING  OF  ENGLISH 

It  is  a  good  plan  to  keep  a  list  of  real  names,  together  with 
hints  of  the  characters  of  their  owners,  as  far  as  these  are 
known  or  guessed.  You  will  see  names  in  newspapers,  in 
catalogues  and  indexes,  in  advertising  signs;  and  hear  them 
from  people  whom  you  meet.  It  is  usually  advisable  to 
change  the  combination  slightly. 

ASSIGNMENT 

1.  What  methods  of  characterization  are  used  in  The  Piece  of 
String? 

2.  Make  a  careful  study  on  cards  of  the  methods  of  characteriza- 
tion used  in  a  story  by  Mary  Wilkins-Freeman,  Edith  Wharton, 
Katherine  Fullerton  Gerould,  or  some  other  writer  whose  char- 
acterization is  said  by  your  instructor  to  be  especially  effective. 

3.  Criticize  the  following  names;  tell  what  kind  of  character  each 
suggests;  and,  if  you  can,  indicate  the  kind  of  plot  with  which  each 
should  be  associated:  Peter  Rodright;  Polly  Periwinkle;  Caroline 
Toplady;  Hilary  O'Hallaran;   Abner  Dawson;   Matilda  Bunker; 
Harriet  Pratt;  Tim  Simpson;  Dulcie  Darling. 

4.  Write  a  story  of  500  words,  using  the  following  plot:  A  young 
doctor  who  is  unable  to  work  up  a  practice  in  a  town  in  which  he  has 
settled,  advertises  that  on  a  certain  day  he  will  go  to  the  cemetery 
and  raise  the  dead.    On  the  day  set  he  goes  to  the  cemetery  and 
finds  most  of  the  town  there.    He  at  once  addresses  someone  stand- 
ing near,  asking:  "Well,  whom  shall  I  bring  back  for  you?"    For 
one  reason  or  another,  he  is  unable  to  find  anybody  who  is  willing 
to  experiment.    If  one  person  suggests  a  name,  someone  else  imme- 
diately objects.     You  will  at  once  think  of  reasons  why  in  each 
case  that  would  necessarily  be  so.     Sketch  about  six  characters, 
three  who  wish  to  have  someone  brought  back,  and  three  who  ob- 
ject.   Note  also  that  you  will  be  also  characterizing  by  effect  the 
dead  persons.    Invent  an  ending  for  the  story. 

5.  Work  up  the  plot  that  you  discussed  in  section  1  (p.  305)  into 
a  500-word  story. 

5.  SETTING 

The  setting  or  scene  of  a  story  may  be  used  in  three  ways: 
(1)  as  mere  background — the  action  must  happen  some- 


THE  SHORT  STORY  321 

where;  (2)  as  explanation  of  the  action,  either  directly,  or 
indirectly  by  helping  to  interpret  the  characters;  and  (3)  as 
part  of  the  machinery  of  the  story. 

When  the  setting  is  mere  background,  the  less  said  about 
it  the  better;  it  is  as  necessary  as  the  background  of  a  picture, 
but  should  be  kept  inconspicuous. 

When  the  setting  serves  to  explain  either  the  plot  or  the 
characters,  it  must  be  distributed  throughout  the  story  by 
multitudes  of  incidental  touches,  as  if  the  place  itself  were  a 
character.  If  the  atmosphere  of  the  place  is  at  once  distinc- 
tive and  unfamiliar,  much  more  description  is  needed  than 
if  it  is  a  type  of  place  found  in  many  parts  of  the  world  and 
familiar  to  many  people.  But  even  when  it  needs  extensive 
interpretation,  this  should  be  diffused,  rather  than  lumpy. 
The  reader,  instead  of  trying  to  assimilate  a  host  of  new  im- 
pressions at  once,  will  receive  them  bit  by  bit,  and  the  effect 
of  them  will  be  cumulative  as  the  story  advances. 

When  the  setting  is  also  machinery,  there  is  usually  little 
plot,  and  by  means  of  descriptive-narration  the  setting  is 
made  to  dominate  the  story.  In  Stevenson's  The  Merry  Men, 
a  whirlpool  is  in  this  sense  the  chief  character;  in  Morgan 
Robertson's  Fifty  Fathoms  Down,  the  interior  of  a  submarine; 
in  Kipling's  The  Ship  that  Found  Herself,  the  parts  of  a  ship 
and  the  wind  and  waves. 

In  beginning  to  write,  you  should  make  it  a  fixed  rule  never 
to  write  about  any  place  unless  you  are  thoroughly  familiar 
with  it;  faked  local  color  obtained  from  books  is  rarely  suc- 
cessful or  convincing.  But  in  dealing  with  this  familiar 
material,  try  to  get  a  new  aspect  of  it  that  will  make  it  more 
vivid  and  interesting.  No  locality  is  too  commonplace  to 
be  converted  into  setting. 

The  names  of  large  cities  may  be  used,  but  for  small  towns 
fictitious  names  should  be  supplied.  Like  character  names, 
they  should  suggest  the  nature  of  the  place  that  they  rep- 
resent. 


322  THE  WRITING  OF  ENGLISH 

ASSIGNMENT 

1.  What  use  is  made  of  setting  in  The  Piece  of  String? 

2.  Find  in  some  good  current  magazine  a  story  in  which  setting 
is  almost  lacking;  copy  the  few  touches  that  you  find,  and  discuss 
in  class  the  different  methods  used  in  these  extracts. 

3.  Study  carefully  the  use  of  setting  in  a  story  by  one  of  the 
following  authors:   Mary  Wilkins-Freeman;   Sarah  Orne  Jewett; 
Ambrose  Bierce;  W.  W.  Jacobs;  Arthur  Morrison;  Joseph  Conrad; 
Rudyard  Kipling. 

4.  Outline  a  plot  in  which  setting  is  used  as  machinery.     You 
may  use  one  of  the  following  situations: 

(1)  An  explorer  in  an  unknown  country; 

(2)  A  sea-captain  in  a  fog; 

(3)  A  murderer  in  a  haunted  house; 

(4)  An  inventor  who  cannot  solve  his  problem. 

5.  Write  in  about  500  words  a  story  on  the  general  plan  of  The 
Piece  of  String,  using  to  explain  your  characters  some  setting  with 
which  you  are  familiar. 

6.  DIALOGUE 

Good  dialogue  is  not  a  realistic  report  of  real  conversation; 
it  is  conversation  telescoped — one  sentence  made  to  serve 
where  a  dozen  might  be  used  in  life : 

"Tis  Easter  Day,"  said  Mrs.  McCree. 
"Scramble  mine,"  said  Danny. — 0.  Henry. 

These  five  words  tell  us  all  we  need  to  know  about  Danny's 
attitude  toward  Easter. 

The  secret  of  dialogue  is  to  find  the  speeches  that  are  at 
once  dynamic  in  the  action  and  characteristic  of  the  speakers, 
and  to  make  these  as  true  to  life  as  possible.  Mere  trivial 
talk,  however  photographically  accurate,  only  dilutes  the 
significant. 

The  chief  device  for  securing  naturalness  is  the  elliptical 
sentence.  Here  is  a  scrap  of  talk  between  two  friends : 

"Pipe?" 

"Got  a  cigar;  try  one!" 

"Thanks." 


THE  SHORT  STORY  323 

This  is  the  way  people  talk.    If  you  complete  the  sentences* 
you  get  book-talk  at  once. 

In  the  following  bit  of  dialogue  are  concentrated  a  sum- 
mary of  events  that  preceded  the  story,  a  foreshadowing 
of  the  development  of  the  plot,  and  characterization  of  the 
two  speakers: 

"Yes,"  said  Roger,  "she's  a  good-lookin'  woman,  that  wife  of 
Soames's.  I'm  told  they  don't  get  on." 

"  She'd  no  money,"  replied  Nicholas. 

"What  was  her  father?" 

"Heron  was  his  name,  a  Professor,  so  they  tell  me." 
Roger  shook  his  head. 
"There's  no  money  in  that,"  he  said. 
"They  say  her  mother's  father  was  cement." 
Roger's  face  brightened. 
"But  he  went  bankrupt,"  went  on  Nicholas. 
"Ah,"  exclaimed  Roger,  "Soames  will  have  trouble  with  her; 
you  mark  my  words,  he'll  have  trouble. " — Galsworthy 

In  a  dramatic  climax,  the  emotional  effect  is  enormously 
intensified  by  condensed  dialogue;  words  interfere.  The  fol- 
lowing passage  is  an  extreme  instance  of  laconic  speech  under 
strong  emotion: 

"Did  you  fire?"  the  sergeant  whispered. 

"Yes." 

"At  what?" 

"A  horse.  It  was  standing  on  yonder  rock — pretty  far  out. 
You  see  it's  no  longer  there.  It  went  over  the  cliff." 

The  man's  face  went  white,  but  he  showed  no  other  sign  of  emo- 
tion. Having  answered,  he  turned  away  his  eyes  and  said  no  more. 
The  sergeant  did  not  understand. 

"See  here,  Druse,"  he  said  after  a  moment's  silence,  "it's  no 
use  making  a  mystery.  I  order  you  to  report.  Was  there  anybody 
on  the  horse?  " 

"Yes." 

"Well?" 

"My  father." 


324  THE  WRITING  OF  ENGLISH 

The  sergeant  rose  to  his  feet  and  walked  away.  "Good  God!" 
he  said. — Ambrose  Bierce. 

The  man  had  been  compelled  by  his  duty  as  sentry  to  shoot 
his  own  father. 

The  general  rule  for  brevity,  however,  must  yield  when 
necessary  to  the  demands  of  characterization.  If  a  speaker  is 
wordy  or  formal,  his  sentences  must  show  it. 

Illiteracy,  slang,  and  dialect  should  be  suggested  by  a 
touch  here  and  there,  rather  than  reproduced  in  detail.  An 
elaborate  reproduction  may  be  obscure,  or  even  unintelligible; 
and  the  difficulty  of  making  it  out  lessens  the  reader's  in- 
terest. If  you  read  the  plays  of  J.  M.  Synge,  you  will  see 
how  well  Irish  modes  of  speech  can  be  suggested  by  the  mere 
arrangement  of  sentences  and  the  occasional  use  of  an  Irish 
word  or  idiom;  the  elaborate  misspelling  affected  by  some 
writers  is  unnecessary  and  disturbing. 

To  get  material  for  dialogue,  you  must  listen  to  conversa- 
tion wherever  you  go.  It  is  a  good  plan  to  have  a  notebook, 
and  to  take  down  from  memory,  verbatim,  if  possible,  in- 
teresting talk.  To  learn  how  to  choose  and  to  condense  for 
the  purpose,  you  must  read  widely  and  closely  the  work  of 
expert  writers.  O.  Henry  is  admirable  in  this  respect, 
except  that  his  slang  is  now  out  of  date.  E.  F.  Benson,  in  his 
Dolly  Dialogues,  is  especially  good  for  repartee. 

The  advice  is  often  given  to  avoid  the  continual  use  of  said, 
and  long  lists  of  synonyms  are  suggested.  The  remedy  sug- 
gested is  worse  than  the  disease;  some  magazine  writers  to- 
day represent  their  characters  as  distorting  their  features  and 
their  speech  in  a  continual  process  of  snapping,  droning,  hiss- 
ing, flashing,  blurting,  chirping,  tittering,  whining,  yawning, 
etc.  Such  words  are  occasionally  useful,  but  they  soon  at- 
tract attention  to  themselves.  It  is  well  to  keep  the  verb 
of  saying  unobtrusive;  and  when  there  are  only  two  speakers, 
to  introduce  it  only  at  intervals  to  keep  the  order  of  the 
speakers  clear. 


THE  SHORT  STORY  325 

ASSIGNMENT 

1.  In  one  of  the  stories  that  you  have  read  recently,  study  the 
dialogue  in  detail.    Discuss  whether  it  might  be  cut  to  advantage 
here  and  there;  show  where  it  furthers  the  plot,  and  where  it  char- 
acterizes.   Study  the  use  of  said  and  other  introductory  words. 

2.  Make  a  list  from  current  magazines  of  stories  in  which  slang, 
dialect,  and  bad  English  are  a  feature.    Discuss  in  class  the  current 
use  and  abuse  of  these  features. 

3.  Take  down  verbatim  an  overheard  conversation.     In  class 
discuss  how  it  would  have  to  be  altered  for  use  in  a  story. 

7.  TITLE 

The  title  should  awaken  curiosity  or  interest,  and  lead 
people  to  read  the  story;  this  is  the  only  essential  require- 
ment. It  should  also  suggest  the  emotional  tone  of  the 
story;  the  reader  in  quest  of  amusement  does  not  wish  to  be 
misled  into  reading  tragedy.  As  a  rule,  it  is  well  to  have  a 
short  title;  yet  The  Strange  Case  of  Dr.  Jekyll  and  Mr. 
Hyde  overcame  this  handicap  by  its  suggestion  of  mystery. 
Again,  a  title  should  be  easily  pronounced  and  remembered; 
yet  the  magazine  which  aims  to  meet  the  taste  of  the  average 
man  published  The  Brachycephalic  Bohunkus,  which  probably 
succeeded  by  going  to  the  opposite  extreme,  being  for  the 
ordinary  man  almost  unpronounceable  and  quite  meaningless. 

The  one  quality  to  be  avoided  is  tameness,  literalness, 
commonplaceness.  The  Love  Story  of  Lily  Gray,  Gwen- 
dolen's Romance,  A  Tale  of  Love  and  War — titles  of  this 
type  suggest  nothing.  On  the  other  hand,  the  name  of  the 
hero  or  heroine  may  supply  a  good  title  if  the  name  itself  is 
suggestive  of  a  distinct  type  of  character;  such  names  as 
Charles  Harris  or  Clara  Cobb  would  not  excite  much  interest. 

ASSIGNMENT 

1.  Criticize  the  following  titles:  The  Lady  or  the  Tiger?;  Orgeas  and 
Miradou;  The  Bottle  Imp;  Marjorie  Daw;  The  Silent  In/are;  The 


326  THE  WRITING  OF  ENGLISH 

Bounty-Jumper;  Miss   Willett;  Xingu;   The  Revolt  of  "Mother"; 

Making  Port;  "Ice  Water  PI ";  Half -past  Ten;  Life;  The  Gate  of 

a  Hundred  Sorrows;  The  Weaver  who  Clad  the  Summer;  Little  Souls; 
Strictly  Business;  A  Municipal  Report;  While  the  Auto  Waits;  The 
Theory  and  the  Hound;  Suite  Homes  and  their  Romances;  Sociology 
in  Serge  and  Straw;  A  Newspaper  Story;  A  Matter  of  Mean  Elevation; 

Supers;  Heart  of  Youth;  In  Borrowed  Plumes;  T.  B.;  Whose  Dog f; 

Penance;  The  Boarded  Window;  Cain's  Atonement;  By  Water;  The 
Courting  of  Dinah  Shadd;  "They";  The  Tragedy  of  a  Comic  Song; 
An  Elaborate  Elopement. 

2.  Examine  half  a  dozen  current  magazines  and  list  the  titles 
which  you  consider  most  successful.  Discuss  these  in  class. 

8.  GENERAL  EXERCISES  IN  THE  SHORT  STORY 

1.  Invent  a  plot  from  the  following  suggestions: 

(1)  A  clerk  begins  after  dinner  to  tell  his  wife  about  a  new  suit 
that  the  manager  is  wearing.    He  goes  to  the  drugstore  to  buy  a 
five-cent  cigar,  and  is  gone  half  an  hour.     When  he  returns,  he 
finishes  his  sentence  by  saying  that  it  is  a  pepper-and  salt  mixture. 
In  the  half  hour  he  has  had  an  Arabian  Nights  adventure. 

(2)  A  well-dressed  girl  and  a  quiet-looking  young  man  meet  in 
the  park  and  become  acquainted  by  accident.     She  refers  to  her 
automobile  waiting  round  the  corner;  he  confesses  that  he  works  in 
the  restaurant  across  the  street.    When  she  rises  to  go,  he  wishes  to 
escort  her  to  her  car,  but  she  bids  him  not  follow  her.    Work  out  a 
plot  introducing  a  surprise.    After  you  have  finished,  read  O.  Henry's 
While  the  Auto  Waits. 

2.  Develop  the  following  to  its  logical  outcome.     There  should 
be  three  more  meetings  with  people,  each  involving  a  change  of 
procedure,  and  the  last  should  be  a  climax  of  absurdity: 

PLEASING  EVERYBODY 

It  was  old  Pat  and  young  Paddy  who  were  driving  their  donkey 
Bran  along  the  muddy  road  to  Limerick  market.  Old  Pat  hobbled 
hard,  being  weak  in  the  joints,  and  young  Paddy  limped  with  a  sore 
foot,  but  Bran  was  as  plump  as  a  sack  of  wheat,  and  as  fine  a  creature 
as  ever  four  hoofs  took  to  market. 

Presently  they  met  an  old  tramp  with  his  little  red  bundle  on 
his  shoulder,  plodding  from  workhouse  to  workhouse.  Says  he, 
"The  like  of  that  I  for  one  never  saw!  A  weak  old  man  and  a  limp- 
ing young  man,  and  between  the  two  of  them  an  able-bodied  beast 
with  his  nose  in  the  air!" 


THE  SHORT  STORY  327 

"I  never  thought  of  that  before,"  says  old  Pat;  and  he  hoisted 
himself  on  Bran's  back,  and  the  three  of  them  went  on  peaceably 
together. 

3.  Write  a  500-word  story  about  one  of  the  following  situations: 

(1)  An  old  bachelor  who  has  found  a  baby  on  his  doorstep; 

(2)  A  woman  who  decides  one  day  to  tell  the  truth  and  the  whole 
truth  to  everybody  whom  she  meets; 

(3)  A  literary  man  who  is  so  absent-minded  that  he  forgets  to  buy 
clothes  when  he  needs  them  and  never  knows  what  he  is  wearing; 

(4)  One  of  your  own  invention. 

4.  Discuss  in  class  various  ways  of  developing  a  story  from  the 
following  situation,  and  write  in  500  words  the  one  that  appeals  to 
you: 

On  the  pavement  in  front  of  the  brilliantly  lighted  entrance  to  a 
theater,  a  young  man  stood  watching  the  playgoers  as  they  streamed 
out.  Many  of  them  returned  his  stare  with  interest,  not  so  much 
because  he  was  tall  and  distinguished  in  appearance,  though  he 
would  have  attracted  attention  anywhere,  as  because  he  was  wearing 
a  long  coat  of  priceless  sables. 

Turning  abruptly,  he  almost  knocked  over  a  wretched-looking 
woman  with  a  baby  in  her  arms. 

"Oh,  sir,"  she  gasped,  as  he  steadied  her  to  keep  her  from  falling, 
"you  couldn't  help  a  poor  woman,  could  you?  I  haven't  a  penny 
in  the  world!" 

"No,  I  can't"  said  he  pleasantly.    "That's  my  case  exactly." 


CHAPTER  XVIII 
THE  PLAY 

OF  the  innumerable  people  who  go  to  the  theater,  very  few 
have  any  clear  understanding  of  what  a  play  is,  or  how  it  is 
presented,  or  how  it  is  constructed. 

In  its  purpose  every  play  is  expository;  it  explains,  through 
the  medium  of  real  men  and  women  moving  and  talking  on 
a  stage  which  imitates  as  closely  as  possible  an  actual  scene, 
the  working  of  some  principle  in  human  life.  The  phrasing 
of  this  particular  principle  in  the  case  of  each  play  constitutes 
the  theme  of  the  play.  All  tragic  themes  are  drawn  from  that 
aspect  of  life  which  shows  a  person,  usually  of  a  strong, 
heroic  type,  in  battle  either  with  external  forces — people  or 
circumstances — or  with  opposing  elements  in  his  own  nature, 
or  with  both.  Melodrama  is  not  drawn  from  life  at  all;  but 
its  themes  all  grow  out  of  the  false  philosophy  that  right 
always  conquers  wrong.  The  themes  of  comedy  are  drawn 
from  every  non-tragic  aspect  of  life;  they  include  all  sorts 
of  principles  found  in  the  development  of  character,  in  the 
various  relationships  of  life;  they  cannot  be  reduced  to  a 
single  philosophy,  unless  it  be  that  all  complications  and  en- 
tanglements are  capable  of  a  happy  solution.  In  comedy 
proper,  the  complications  are  closely  associated  with  char- 
acter— presented  realistically,  romantically,  satirically,  hu- 
morously— but  in  farce,  the  extreme  form  of  comedy,  the 
entanglement  is  always  due  to  circumstances,  and  the  treat- 
ment is  purely  comic. 

In  its  process  the  play  may  be  described  as  syncopated 
narration — narration  in  which  the  thread  of  the  story  is 
carried  on  by  means  of  the  dialogue  itself,  together  with  the 
328 


THE  PLAY  329 

facial  expressions,  gestures,  and  actions  of  the  persons  on  the 
stage.  This  you  will  see  at  once  by  turning  to  a  modern 
play  intended  to  be  read  as  well  as  acted;  there  you  will  find 
among  the  stage  directions  long  passages  of  narration  and 
description,  which  serve  to  link  the  speeches  together.  Such 
passages  are  not  needed  in  an  acted  play,  where  the  make-up 
and  acting  do  the  work  of  narration  and  description.  The 
stage  directions  of  Bernard  Shaw,  Granville  Barker,  John 
Galsworthy,  Sir  James  Barrie,  and  their  followers,  contain 
so  much  narrative  and  descriptive  material  as  almost  to  de- 
mand a  special  name  as  a  new  type  of  writing. 

The  theme  of  a  play  is  explained  by  means  of  plot.  Dra- 
matic plot,  like  plot  in  narration  which  is  not  syncopated, 
consists  of  a  series  of  unstable  situations  which  pass  through 
various  changes  but  come  to  rest  only  at  the  end  of  the  last 
act.  The  material,  however,  for  dramatic  plot,  is  somewhat 
strictly  limited  by  practical  considerations;  many  settings 
are  impossible  even  with  all  the  ingenious  mechanical  con- 
trivances known  to-day;  too  many  changes  of  scene  and  too 
long  lapses  of  time  disconcert  and  confuse  the  audience;  and 
too  many  characters  have  the  same  effect.  Dramatic  plot 
must  be  concentrated;  it  cannot  often  successfully  concern 
more  than  twenty  people,  and  it  usually  works  with  less  than 
a  dozen;  it  changes  the  scene  often  enough  to  give  variety, 
but  avoids  too  much  geographical  swing.  A  play  that  moves 
half  round  the  world  in  its  scenes  must  have  some  source  of 
strong  interest  to  counterbalance  its  geographical  distrac- 
tions. 

The  drama  in  its  prime  under  Queen  Elizabeth  organized 
its  plots  in  such  a  way  that  modern  criticism  has  summed 
them  up  as  consisting  of  five  distinct  acts,  which  correspond 
roughly  to  five  distinct  dramatic  movements: 

1.  The  introduction,  in  which  the  exposition  of  the  un- 
stable situation  out  of  which  the  others  grow  is  set  forth. 

2.  The  rise  of  the  action  in  which  something  has  happened 


330  THE  WRITING  OF  ENGLISH 

to  change  the  opening  situation,  and  we  see  the  conflict  (in 
the  tragedy)  or  the  complication  (in  the  comedy)  under  way. 
The  event  that  precipitates  the  rise  is  sometimes  called  the 
inciting  force. 

3.  The  climax — the  moment  of  strain  or  complication — 
in  which  the  audience  feels  the  death-grip  of  the  antagonists 
in  the  tragedy,  or  the  complete  mystification  or  despair  of 
solution  in  the  comedy.    It  is  the  moment  before  the  move- 
ment toward  the  tragic  or  the  happy  ending  is  initiated. 

4.  The  fall,  the  movement  of  the  play  toward  its  tragic 
or  happy  solution.     Sometimes  in  tragedy  this  is  held  back 
for  a  moment — called  the  final  suspense — for  the  purpose  of 
gaining  momentary  relief  and  momentum  toward  a  swift 
tragic  conclusion. 

5.  The   conclusion,  the  situation  of   temporary  stability 
(or  in  tragedy  final  stability)  at  which  the  play  is  stopped. 
In  comedy  this  is  also  called  the  resolution,  the  denouement, 
or  untying  of  the  knot. 

It  is  not  to  be  supposed  that  these  movements  usually 
correspond  exactly  to  the  five  acts  of  the  play.  The  Intro- 
duction may  be  very  short,  and  the  rise  begin  early  in  Act  I; 
the  fall  may  begin  in  Act  III;  and  other  variations  occur. 
But  in  a  general  way  the  five  acts  check  off  the  de- 
velopment of  the  plot  as  suggested  above.  Macbeth  is  reg- 
ular in  its  structure:  the  exposition  explains  Macbeth 's 
position,  and  the  rise  begins  in  act  I,  scene  iii,  in  which  the 
witches  prophesy  that  he  will  be  king;  the  climax  is  reached 
in  act  III,  scene  4  where  Banquo  is  killed;  and  the  fall  begins 
with  the  escape  of  Fleance  in  that  same  scene;  the  resolution 
comes  when  Macduff  enters  with  Macbeth's  head  at  the  end 
of  the  last  act. 

The  second  part  of  a  play  so  constructed  is  necessarily  less 
interesting  than  the  first;  after  the  climax  is  passed,  the 
audience  becomes  impatient  for  the  end.  Consequently,  the 
fourth  and  fifth  acts  came  to  be  telescoped  into  one,  and  the 


THE  PLAY  331 

four-act  play  developed.  Particularly  noticeable  is  the  cut- 
ting at  the  very  end.  The  long  explanations  of  the  old  plays 
were  first  reduced  to  the  assembling  of  all  the  characters  at 
the  last  moment;  then  this  was  omitted,  and  to-day  they  do 
not  come  together  to  bow  to  the  audience  until  after  the  cur- 
tain has  ended  the  play. 

Besides  the  four-Act  play,  arose  the  three-act  play;  and 
we  have  now  even  two-act  plays,  while  the  one-act  play  has 
become  especially  popular,  several  being  used  together  to 
form  an  evening's  entertainment. 

The  one-act  play  is  the  presentation  and  resolution  of  a 
single  dramatic  crisis.  The  rise  and  fall  are  telescoped; 
there  is  only  the  briefest  introduction;  the  whole  attention 
of  the  audience  is  focussed  upon  the  central  situation.  Very 
few  characters  are  used — sometimes  only  two  or  three.  The 
setting  does  not  change,  and  is  usually  very  simple,  though 
it  may  be  highly  original. 

Characterization  in  a  play  proceeds  by  the  same  general 
methods  as  characterization  in  a  story;  but  they  are  differ- 
ently applied.  Nearly  all  description  is  given  in  stage  direc- 
tions. Rarely,  one  character  can  be  made  to  describe  another. 
The  exposition  of  traits  is  almost  entirely  by  means  of  ex- 
pression, gesture,  and  actions.  Habits  can  be  shown  by 
personal  appearance,  dress,  all  sorts  of  personal  idiosyn- 
crasies, and  by  the  effect  produced  upon  others.  Fundamen- 
tal traits  are  shown  by  spontaneous  words  and  actions,  and 
by  response  to  the  words  and  actions  of  other  characters. 
The  chief  difficulties  in  character  drawing  are  in  showing 
the  action  and  reaction  of  two  persons  upon  each  other,  and 
still  keeping  them  sharply  differentiated;  in  showing  the  in- 
teractions among  a  group,  and  still  keeping  each  member 
distinct;  and  in  showing  the  development  of  character  as  the 
plot  develops.  This  last  is  possible  only  when  the  play  covers 
a  considerable  period  of  time,  and  is  rarely  attempted  to  any 
elaborate  extent  to-day.  But  the  exposition  of  characters  in 


332  THE  WRITING  OF  ENGLISH 

relationship  is  an  essential  feature  of  all  drama;  and  in  at- 
tempting this,  a  writer  is  sure  to  fail  unless  he  has  the  power 
of  projecting  his  personality  into  one  character  after  another 
much  as  an  actor  may  play  one  part  after  another. 

The  requirements  of  setting  are  that  it  shall  arrange  for 
the  exits  and  entrances  of  a  number  of  people  with  probability 
and  propriety,  and  for  their  grouping  6n  the  stage  with  an 
effect  of  reality,  and  shall  provide  them  scope  and  materials 
for  the  various  kinds  of  actions  involved  in  the  plot. 

In  the  play,  even  more  than  in  the  story,  it  is  important 
that  every  speech  should  mean  something  or  "get  some- 
where"— preferably  both.  In  Mr.  Shaw's  and  Mr.  Barker's 
plays  every  speech  means  something;  but  a  large  proportion 
of  them  do  not  visibly  forward  the  action.  In  Mr.  Gals- 
worthy's plays,  on  the  other  hand,  almost  every  speech 
"gets  somewhere"  with  the  plot,  and  most  of  the  speeches 
interpret  character  as  well.  This  difference  is  one  of  ideal 
rather  than  of  merit;  that  is,  Bernard  Shaw  cultivates  a  type 
of  drama  which  is  little  more  than  brilliant  dialogue,  full  of 
meaning  but  almost  without  movement.  This,  however,  is 
a  very  different  thing  from  confusing  dialogue  as  the  vital  part 
of  drama  with  a  mere  series  of  conversations  on  the  stage. 
Long,  rhetorical,  explanatory  speeches  will  doom  a  good  play 
to  failure.  The  dialogue  must  be  highly  elliptical,  much 
broken  up  among  the  characters  so  that  all  shall  have  some- 
thing to  say,  and  dynamic  with  hints  of  character  and  fore- 
shadowings  of  the  development  of  the  action. 

The  attempt  to  write  the  one-act  play  is  valuable  practice 
for  the  student.  It  should  be  preceded  by  the  study  of  plays 
by  successful  modern  dramatists.  The  following  are  par- 
ticularly recommended: 

Galsworthy's  Justice  and  The  Silver  Box  are  both  long 
plays,  but  admirable  for  the  study  of  technique. 

Barrie's  Rosalind  and  The  Twelve-Pound  Look  are  one-act 
plays,  especially  interesting  for  their  characterization  and 


THE  PLAY  333 

humor,  and  also  for  their  treatment  of  stage  directions.  They 
suggest,  more  than  the  Galsworthy  plays,  the  way  to  write 
a  play  which  is  to  be  read  as  well  as  acted. 

Lord  Dunsany's  volume  of  Five  Plays  includes  both  long 
and  short  plays.  They  are  noteworthy  for  the  suggestive 
bareness  of  their  dialogue.  The  study  of  them  would  tend 
to  counteract  wordiness. 

Synge's  Riders  to  the  Sea  and  The  Shadow  of  the  Glen  are 
valuable  as  showing  the  possibility  of  writing  poetic  drama 
to-day.  They  can  scarcely  be  imitated;  but  should  prove 
stimulating  to  efforts  in  other  directions. 

Cannan's  Mary's  Wedding  suggests  a  simple  treatment 
of  a  subject  of  strong  human  appeal. 

If  you  attempt  the  one-act  play,  the  following  hints  may 
be  useful: 

1.  Try  to  find  a  situation  of  deep  emotional  appeal  or 
obvious  humor,  which  could  yet  enter  into  the  experience  of 
many  people.    The  reading  and  seeing  of  plays  will  cultivate  a 
sense  for  such  situations. 

2.  Use  as  few  characters  as  possible. 

3.  Keep  your  setting  as  simple  as  possible,  but  try  to  in- 
troduce some  feature  not  found  in  every  play.    Try  to  get 
away  from  the  stock  properties,  at  the  same  time  remember- 
ing the  limitations  of  stage  carpentry.    Draw  a  plan  of  your 
stage  with  its  properties,  and  move  pins  about  on  it  to  show 
the  positions  of  your  characters  as  the  play  progresses.    In 
this  way  you  at  once  become  aware  of  absurdities.     It  is 
still  better  to  use  dolls  in  a  toy  theater. 

4.  Remember  the  power  of  restraint  and  the  effect  of  sug- 
gestion.   Accomplish  as  much  as  you  can  by  means  of  action; 
let  the  words  be  rather  the  accompaniment  than  the  means  of 
transmission  in  your  plot. 

5.  Simplicity,  originality,  and  drive, — these  make  a  good 
combination.     Remember  that  the  audience  has  paid  its 
money,  and  is  waiting  to  be  interested. 


334  THE  WRITING  OF  ENGLISH 

6.  Act  the  play  mentally.    Conceive  yourself  to  be  playing 
each  of  the  parts  in  turn,  and  ask  yourself:  What  should  I 
say  or  do  now?    How  should  I  say  it  or  do  it?    How  should  I 
look  when  I  say  it  or  do  it?    The  more  you  can  actually  go 
through  the  external  motions,  the  more  likely  you  are  to 
make  your  characters  vivid,  and  to  keep  them  distinct. 

7.  Begin  abruptly,   and  work  in  your  situation  clearly 
but  as  briefly  as  possible;  and  end  with  equal  abruptness.    Do 
not  go  beyond  your  last  effective  sentence. 

ASSIGNMENT 

1.  After  class  discussion  of  plays  which  have  been  assigned  for 
reading,  write  in  about  100  words  a  summary  of  the  plot  develop- 
ment of  the  one  in  which  you  were  most  interested. 

2.  Make  a  similar  study  in  about  200  words  of  the  characteriza- 
tion and  setting  of  another. 

3.  Compare  in  about  300  words  the  dialogue  of  Shaw,  Galsworthy, 
Dunsany,  and  Synge. 

4.  Discuss  the  possibility  of  dramatizing  The  Piece  of  String. 
Show  where  the  play  would  be  weak  and  where  strong.     Decide 
where  the  scene  must  be  laid,  what  characters  should  be  used; 
and  then  see  whether  you  can  make  a  plan  that  will  overcome  the 
dramatic  difficulties.    Do  not  attempt  to  write  the  play. 

5.  Write  on  a  subject  of  your  own  choosing  a  one-act  play  which 
can  be  given  in  about  15  minutes.     If  you  cannot  develop  it,  make 
full  notes  for  the  plot,  setting,  characters,  and  suggestions  for 
dialogue.     Do  not  forget  that  stage  directions  are  necessary  and 
must  be  explicit. 


CHAPTER  XIX 
THE  SHORT  PAPER 

1.  PLAN 

THE  kind  of  writing  which,  aside  from  letters,  most  of  you 
will  practise  is  the  short  paper,  for  publication  in  magazine 
or  periodical,  for  presentation  before  an  audience,  or  for  prac- 
tical use  with  some  committee  or  individual.  In  such  papers 
the  process  is  almost  always  fundamentally  expository  or 
argumentative;  but  description  or  narration,  or  both,  ac- 
cording to  the  nature  of  the  subject,  are  largely  used  as 
auxiliary. 

For  convenience  of  treatment,  we  shall  group  such  papers 
under  three  heads: 

1.  The  Informative  Article. 

2.  The  Essay  or  Study. 

3.  The  Propaganda  Paper  or  Speech. 

The  first  condition  of  success  in  a  short  paper  is  an  outline 
that  is  a  real  skeleton  of  the  body  of  thought  presented.  The 
degree  to  which  the  outline  should  appear  in  the  finished 
product  depends  upon  the  nature  of  the  paper;  but  the 
process  of  "thinking  through"  a  subject  before  attempting 
to  write  upon  it  is  rarely  omitted  even,  by  practised  writers. 
The  amateur  must  go  further — he  must  set  down  in  outline 
form  the  movement  of  his  thought  from  its  first  step  to  its 
last;  and  he  must  keep  this  outline  before  him  as  he  writes. 
If  it  is  easy  to  make,  then  the  making  of  it  takes  almost  no 
time,  and  frequent  reference  to  it  keeps  the  pen  from  straying 
off  the  point.  If  it  is  difficult  to  make,  then  the  need  for  it 
is  imperative. 

335 


336  THE  WRITING  OF  ENGLISH 

You  began  to  study  outlining  in  connection  with  the  par- 
agraph, and  noted  a  special  application  of  it  in  the  brief. 
Before  beginning  to  practise  writing  these  different  types  of 
papers,  note  and  apply  the  following  suggestions; 

1.  Always  complete  your  outline  before  you  begin  to  write. 

2.  Refer  to  your  outline  at  every  step  of  the  thought. 
Otherwise,  why  should  you  have  gone  to  the  trouble  of  mak- 
ing it? 

3.  Do  not  hesitate  to  revise  it  if,  as  you  write,  your  thinking 
suggests  a  better  organization. 

4.  Always  keep  your  outline  and  your  paper  in  harmony. 
Your  paper  will  not  be  as  good  as  it  might  be  if  you  neglect 
to  reconstruct  your  outline  whenever  you  see  a  better  way 
of  developing  your  subject;  or  if,  having  an  admirable  out- 
line, you  allow  your  paragraphs  to  drift  away  from  it. 

5.  For  a  paper  of  1000  words  or  less,  carry  your  outline 
into  such  detail  that  it  shows  the  subordination  of  subheads 
down  to  the  single  paragraph.    Unless  you  do  this,  you  will 
almost  certainly  have  momentary  aberrations  of  thought 
which  produce  paragraphs  like  excrescences,  out  of  all  pro- 
portion to  the  main  trend  of  thought,  or  not  belonging  to  it 
at  all. 

6.  In  your  outline  express  the  relationships  of  heads  and 
subheads  by  letters  and  figures  that  show  at  a  glance  which 
parts  of  the  subject  are  parallel  and  of  equal  importance, 
and  which  are  subordinate.    The  main  mechanical  feature  is 
that  headings  of  the  same  grade  should  be  indicated  through- 
out the  outline  in  the  same  manner.    For  example,  it  would 
be  very  confusing  to  mark  your  first  main  head  with  an  A 
and  your  second  with  the  Roman  numeral  II,  or  your  second 
subhead  with  b  and  your  third  with  3.    A  simple  and  clear 
method  of  indicating  the  relationships  of  the  parts  of  an  out- 
line is  the  following:  (Note  that  the  analysis  is  very  incom- 
plete, and  that  the  analysis  of  only  one  subhead  is  fully 
developed.) 


THE  SHORT  PAPER  337 

THE  MAKE-UP  OF  THE  AMERICAN  NEWSPAPER 

A.  News  matter 

I.  News  items 

a.  Foreign 

b.  National 

c.  Domestic,  but  not  local 

d.  Local 

1.  Crimes 

2.  Accidents 

3.  Political  events 

4.  Social  events 

5.  Meetings  of  organizations,  etc. 

6.  Church  events 

7.  Amusements,«etc. 

II.  Special  articles 

a.  Interviews 

b.  Expanded  news  items 
III.  Criticisms 

a.  Books 

b.  Drama  and  moving  pictures 

c.  Music 

d.  Art 

IV.  Advice  columns 

a.  Health 

b.  Physical  culture 

c.  Cooking 

d.  Fashions 

e.  Investments,  etc. 
V.  Correspondence 

VI.  Editorials 
B.  Advertisements 

I.  Display  (analyzed) 
H.  Class  (analyzed) 

III.  Disguised 


338  THE  WRITING  OF  ENGLISH 

Under  A,  I  subhead  d  is  analyzed  rather  than  a,  b,  or  c 
because  these  necessarily  vary  widely  from  day  to  day. 
Crimes  can  be  subdivided  into  Murder,  Robbery,  Theft,  Arson, 
etc.,  making  another  set  of  subheads  to  be  marked  (a),  (b), 
(c),  etc. 

There  should  never  be  a  single  subhead.  If  you  have  an 
apple,  you  either  keep  it  whole,  or  cut  into  two  or  more  parts; 
and  so  you  should  deal  writh  a  subject.  The  habit  of  writing 
a  single  subhead  grows  out  of  loose  thinking — jotting  down 
detached  memoranda  as  a  basis  for  a  paper,  without  giving 
due  care  to  their  exact  relationship. 

As  a  short  paper  may  include  two,  three,  or  even  all  four 
of  the  processes  of  writing,  your  outline  may  show  a  similar 
variety;  that  is,  it  may,  perhaps,  not  be  constructed  on  the 
principle  of  time  alone,  t>r  of  place  alone,  or  of  reason  alone, 
but  on  several  of  these  principles  combined  and  shown  by  the 
form  of  the  outline  itself  to  stand  in  vital  relationship  to  one 
another  and  to  the  subject. 

There  is  no  better  way  to  learn  how  to  organize  material 
in  a  paper  than  to  study  tables  of  contents  of  short  and  well- 
organized  text-books  in  science  and  history.  It  is  a  good  plan 
even  to  copy  several  of  these*  of  different  types,  with  great 
care  to  reproduce  the  exact  organization  of  heads  and  sub- 
heads. More  difficult  but  also  more  valuable  is  practice  in 
reproducing  the  outlines  on  which  successful  published 
articles  have  been  constructed. 

Two  mechanical  points  should  be  mentioned  in  regard  to 
the  outline: 

1.  A  single  capital  beginning  the  first  word  is  sufficient  to 
distinguish  the  heads,  and  no  punctuation  mark  is  needed  at 
the  end.     The  indention  should  advance  gradually  to  the 
right. 

2.  The  heads  may  be  expressed  either  topically  or  in  sen- 
tences; but  as  it  is  easier  to  make  parallel  topics  than  to 
construct  parallel  sentences,  it  is  perhaps  well  at  first  to  use 


THE  SHORT  PAPER  339 

the  topic  form  as  far  as  it  is  practicable.  When  sentences 
are  necessary,  as  in  the  brief,  great  care  should  be  taken  to 
construct  them  in  parallel  form,  as  any  variation  tends  to 
obscure  the  thought  relation.  All  heads  and  subheads  pre- 
ceded by  the  same  type  of  letter  or  numeral  should  be  in  the 
same  form. 

ASSIGNMENT 

1.  Examine  the  tables  of  contents  of  six  standard  text-books, 
preferably  in  science  or  history,  and  copy  the  table  which  seems  to 
you  most  satisfactory  as  an  analysis.    Discuss  these  tables  in  class, 
and  suggest  improvements  where  you  can. 

2.  Examine  the  current  number  of  some  magazine  and  classify 
the  expository  papers  under  the  heads:  informative  article  and 
essay.    Read  one  paper  of  each  kind,  and  make  notes  on  its  matter 
and  manner  to  be  used  in  class  discussion.     Try  to  make  clear  to 
yourself  and  to  the  class  how  the  purpose  in  each  case  has  affected 
the  writing.    The  most  valuable  periodicals  for  your  purpose  are: 
The  Atlantic  Monthly,  the  Outlook,  the  Independent,  the  Nation,  the 
New  Republic,  the  Unpopular  Review,  the  Saturday  Evening  Post. 

3.  Outline  the  papers  chosen  for  study. 

4.  Examine  an  article  in  a  scientific  or  other  technical  journal, 
and  compare  its  organization  of  subject-matter  with  the  types  of 
organization  found  in  the  preceding  cases. 

5.  Decide  for  which  kind  of  publication  each  of  the  following 
subjects  would  be  available,  throwing  out  those  that  do  not  seem 
to  you  worth  while  on  any  basis.     If  the  same  subject  could  be 
treated  for  both  types  of  journals,  explain  how: 

The  Freshman's  Freshness;  Latest  Developments  in  Aeroplanes; 
How  I  Typewrite;  Getting  Up  Early;  The  Serbian;  Life  on  a  Sub- 
marine; What  the  Morning  Mail  May  Do  to  You;  Labor  Unions 
and  Patriotism;  How  Women  Sharpen  Pencils;  Knowledge  is  Power; 
Things  I  Love  Not  to  Do;  A  New  Mechanical  Device  to  Help  the 
Blind;  A  Federal  Inheritance  Tax;  Gothic  Architecture;  Palmis- 
try; What  the  Irish  Want;  Are  the  French  as  a  Nation  Gay;  The 
Dictaphone;  Protective  Coloring  in  College;  What  is  a  Gentle- 
man; How  Wireless  Telegraphy  Works;  How  to  Pack  a  Trunk; 
My  Six-by-Eight  City  Garden;  System  in  the  Kitchen;  The  Life  of 
the  Glowworm;  Did  Shakespeare  Ever  Visit  Italy;  On  Shaking 
Hands;  The  Round  Tower  at  Newport;  How  I  Concentrate. 


340  THE  WRITING  OF  ENGLISH 

6.  Following  the  plan  of  the  newspaper  outline  partly  developed 
in  this  section  make  a  complete  outline  of  the  News  section  of  the 
paper  that  you  read;  then  make  a  full  outline  of  the  Advertisement 
section. 

7.  Choose  the  five  subjects  in  5  which  seem  to  you  most  prom- 
ising and  indicate  in  a  general  way  how  you  would  proceed  to  out- 
line them.    Make  a  complete  outline  of  one. 


2.  THE  INFORMATIVE  ARTICLE 

The  informative  article  is  the  simplest  use  of  exposition; 
its  only  purpose  is  to  organize  the  scattered  facts  about  any 
subject,  and  to  present  them  in  such  a  way  that  they  will 
instruct  in  an  interesting  manner  a  certain  class  of  readers. 
Its  method  is  entirely  objective. 

For  this  kind  of  article  there  are  three  conditions  of  success : 

1.  A  subject  about  which  there  is  real  popular  curiosity; 

2.  Careful  adaptation  of  the  subject  to  the  intelligence, 
state  of  knowledge,  and  interests  of  the  readers  for  whom  it 
is  intended; 

3.  Organization  that  will  ensure  proper  understanding  of 
the  material. 

A  brisk  style,  a  feeling  for  picturesque  incident,  a  sense  of 
humor,  are  all  useful  but  not  essential. 

Since  popular  curiosity  is  molded  largely  by  current  events 
as  these  are  reflected  in  the  newspapers  and  magazines,  prob- 
ably the  best  way  to  learn  to  choose  material  for  a  paper  of 
this  kind  is  to  form  the  habit  of  noticing  what  is  written 
about  in  the  best  magazines  by  frequently  looking  at  the 
tables  of  contents  even  when  you  have  no  time  to  read  the 
articles;  and  by  following  the  newspapers  so  closely  that  when 
they  present  a  subject  that  has  not  yet  appeared  in  the  mag- 
azines you  notice  the  novelty  at  once.  Of  course  all  this  will 
not  help  you  unless  you  either  have  or  can  get  special  knowl- 
edge of  the  subject  you  wish  to  write  about.  Special  knowl- 
edge does  not  mean  necessarily  new  information — although 


THE  SHORT  PAPER  341 

this  is  usually  the  most  valuable;  it  may  mean  bringing  to 
light  new  relationships  between  old  facts  or  pointing  out  in- 
teresting but  neglected  connections.  For  instance,  if  a 
living  specimen  of  a  supposed  extinct  species  of  birds  is  found 
in  a  remote  part  of  the  world,  an  article  summing  up  what  has 
been  known  hitherto  about  the  type  may  be  timely,  although 
it  will  not  have  the  value  of  the  article  written  by  the  dis- 
coverer of  the  bird. 

In  general,  it  may  be  said  that  popular  interest  runs  in 
waves,  and  it  is  well  to  keep  ahead  of  the  crest  of  the  wave. 
Before  the  War,  for  some  years  much  was  written  about 
political  graft  and  the  corruption  of  high  finance,  about 
social  problems,  housing  conditions,  loan  sharks,  etc.  The 
War  introduced  an  entirely  new  set  of  interests  and  problems, 
not  merely  in  connection  with  the  actual  fighting,  but  con- 
cerning living  conditions  in  various  countries  of  Europe, 
and  especially  concerning  problems  of  our  own  national  wel- 
fare. There  will  of  course  be  new  phases  in  connection  with 
reconstruction;  and  the  writer  of  popular  articles  must  vie 
with  the  journalist  in  looking  ahead.  It  is  a  good  plan  to  keep 
a  changeable  list  of  subjects  that  occupy  the  public  attention, 
crossing  them  off  as  they  grow  out  of  date  or  are  over- 
exploited. 

The  next  step  is  to  determine  what  aspect  of  the  general 
subject  in  which  people  are  interested  you  are  fitted  to  deal 
with.  Let  us  assume  a  few  possibilities.  If  you  are  ac- 
quainted with  some  one  who  becomes  famous,  or  with  a  place 
that  is  brought  before  the  public  eye  for  some  interesting 
occurrence,  chance  has  given  you  special  knowledge  which 
can  be  used  to  advantage. 

Suppose,  for  example,  you  undertake  to  write  on  one  of 
the  following  subjects: 

Luncheon  with  Lloyd  George; 

Fighting  in  the  High  Alps  as  I  Saw  it; 

Is  Frederick  the  Great  Responsible  for  the  War? 


342  THE  WRITING  OF  ENGLISH 

How  can  special  knowledge  be  adapted  to  readers?    Certain 
eliminations  suggest  themselves  at  once : 

1.  You  must  not  tell  them  what  they  know  already,  partly 
because  they  would  be  bored,  and  partly  because,  from  the 
very  nature  of  your  subject,  such  material  would  be  irrelevant; 
as,  for  instance,  if  you  should  include  an  account  of  the 
geography  of  the  Alps  in  your  account  of  mountain  fighting; 
of  the  campaigns  of  Frederick  the  Great  in  your  paper  on  his 
influence;  of  the  familiar  events  in  the  career  of  Lloyd  George 
in  your  impression  of  him  derived  from  a  luncheon,  and  so  on. 

2.  Nor,  on  the  other  hand,  must  you  include  abstruse  or 
technical  knowledge  of  such  things  as  geological  theories,  or 
elaborate  statistics.     Maps,  like  pictures,  may  add  to  the 
intelligibility  as  well  as  the  interest  of  your  paper. 

3.  In  such  a  paper  as  we  are  discussing,  you  must  shut  out 
argument.    Your  business  is  merely  to  present  your  material. 
Your  reader  for  the  moment  is  depending  upon  your  judgment 
to  give  him  reliable  information  in  such  a  way  that  he  has 
nothing  to  do  but  absorb  it. 

So  much  on  the  negative  side.  On  the  positive,  try  to 
make  your  explanation  as  concrete  as  possible.  This  you  can 
do  in  several  ways: 

1.  You  can  use  examples;  but  your  illustrations  must  be 
taken  from  the  phases  of  life  with  which  most  people  are 
familiar,  or  they  may  be  a  hindrance  rather  than  a  help. 

2.  You  can  use  all  the  methods  of  narration  and  descrip- 
tion freely  in  developing  your  examples.    In  this  connection, 
humorous  or  picturesque  anecdote  with  dialogue  is  partic- 
ularly useful. 

On  what  principle  shall  this  material  be  organized?  Here 
again  the  audience  must  be  the  first  consideration.  How*ever 
the  subject  naturally  divides  itself,  it  should  be  so  arranged 
that  the  first  item  in  the  plan  rouses  the  reader's  interest 
enough  to  secure  his  attention.  Sometimes  reference  to  the 
incident  which  attracted  public  attention  to  the  matter  and 


THE  SHORT  PAPER  343 

which  caused  the  writing  of  the  article,  is  a  good  way  to  begin; 
sometimes  a  thrilling  episode,  as  in  an  account  of  the  moun- 
tain fighting;  sometimes  a  statement  that  sounds  incredible, 
as,  for  instance,  "It  was  Frederick  the  Great,  dead  in  1786, 
who  plunged  the  world  into  war  in  1914  ";  sometimes  an  asser- 
tion of  mistaken  views  rouses  curiosity  as  to  how  they  will 
be  corrected,  as,  for  instance,  a  totally  wrong  impression  of 
Lloyd  George,  and  so  on.  By  the  exercise  of  a  little  ingenu- 
ity, a  good  point  of  departure  can  always  be  found;  and 
when  found  will  help  to  determine  the  other  main  heads  of 
the  paper. 

In  making  such  an  outline,  students  are  often  told  to  or- 
ganize the  principal  divisions  as:  introduction,  body,  con- 
clusion. To  this  advice  there  are  objections.  One  is  that 
the  introduction  and  conclusion,  so  planned,  will  in  many 
cases  be,  not  vital  parts  of  the  paper  at  all,  but  simply 
appendages  tacked  on  because  their  presence  is  believed  to 
be  necessary.  This  disjointed  effect  can  be  avoided  by  look- 
ing for  a  principle  that  will  articulate  your  first  main  head 
with  your  second,  and  suggest  the  trend  of  the  whole  paper. 
Why  did  I  say  that  Frederick  caused  the  War?  Because 
he  ...  and  because  he  .  .  .;  the  principle  is  cause  and 
effect.  Were  you  interested  in  that  newspaper  story  of  the 
carrier  pigeons?  Well,  I  can  tell  you  another  .  .  .  and 
another  .  .  .  and  another  .  .  .;  the  principle  is  exemplifica- 
tion. Did  you  suppose,  as  I  did,  that  Lloyd  George  is  thus- 
and-so?  But  he  is  really  quite  the  opposite;  contrast. 
How  do  I  know?  Because  he  said  .  .  .  and  he  acted  .  .  .; 
cause  and  effect.  Thus  the  paper  grows  naturally  and  or- 
ganically from  its  point  of  departure  to  its  last  word. 

For  a  magazine  article  or  a  paper  to  be  read  before  an 
audience  you  should  try  to  keep  the  bones  of  the  skeleton 
from  sticking  through  its  skin.  It  is  better  to  let  them  show 
than  to  have  no  bones;  but  people  in  general  prefer  to  see 
skeletons  covered.  In  a  paper  the  best  way  to  hide  the  bony 


344  THE  WRITING  OF  ENGLISH 

structure  is  by  the  ease  and  variety  of  your  transitions;  that 
is,  by  not  allowing  each  new  point  to  stick  out  at  the  begin- 
ning of  a  paragraph,  but  by  sometimes  placing  it  within  the 
paragraph.  This  method  appears  in  the  following  opening 
paragraphs  of  an  article  in  which  the  fundamental  ideas  are 
italicized;  you  will  thus  see  at  a  glance  how  far  they  are  from 
betraying  the  structure  of  the  paper  by  the  first  words  of 
each  paragraph: 

Ever  since  that  fateful  August  of  1914  the  hopes  of  humanity 
have  been  centered  each  year  upon  the  springtime,  and  now  again 
all  the  peoples  of  this  war-torn  world  are  looking  forward  to  the 
end  of  the  winter.  For  within  the  new  year,  upon  the  threshold  of 
which  we  now  stand,  war  mil  have  become  a  game  of  a  different  na- 
ture, played  to  new  rules,  because  of  a  new  and  dominating  element 
introduced  into  it. 

The  bitter  experience  of  all  the  belligerent  countries  during  these 
three  years  of  the  greatest  of  all  struggles  has  taught  that  seven- 
tenths  of  the  problems  of  modern  war  are  industrial;  that  humming 
factories  and  greasy  workers,  as  well  as  fighting  men,  are  involved. 
Rifles,  shells,  big  guns,  motor  vehicles — these  and  a  thousand  and 
one  other  munition  items — all  must  be  rushed  in  a  never-ending 
stream  to  the  fronts. 

But  now  the  great  plants  in  all  warring  countries  are  humming  a 
new  tune — stronger,  more  inspiring,  more  deadly  even  than  before; 
and  if  peace  can  come  only  through  the  making  of  war  utterly  in- 
tolerable for  the  enemy,  this  new  threat  of  coming  destruction  must 
surely  hasten  the  end.  In  Great  Britain,  in  France,  in  Italy,  in 
Germany  and  in  the  United  States,  hundreds  of  thousands  of  men  and 
women  workers  are  being  feverishly  taught  a  new  art;  for  to  those  men 
who  control  the  destinies  of  the  world  through  its  armies  has  come 
the  realization  of  an  imminent  and  momentous  change  in  warfare's 
strategy. — Howard  E.  Coffin. 

In  a  formal  report  it  is  desirable  to  make  the  organization 
of  the  paper  obvious.  It  may  even  be  stated  as  a  purpose  in 
an  introductory  paragraph,  and  summarized  in  a  concluding 
paragraph. 

Beyond  doubt,  the  only  satisfactory  way  to  learn  how  to 
make  an  outline  and  then  conceal  it  is  by  the  careful  analysis 


THE  SHORT  PAPER  345 

of  many  well-constructed  articles,  followed  by  the  noting — 
underlining,  even — of  the  various  methods  of  accomplishing 
transition  of  thought  from  paragraph  to  paragraph. 

With  material  and  organization  in  hand,  the  only  remaining 
part  of  the  task  is  to  keep  moving;  to  move  in  as  straight- 
forward and  brisk  and  vivid  a  way  as  you  can;  to  make  your 
sentences  short  enough  to  make  the  movement  of  them  felt; 
to  use  as  short  words  as  are  consistent  with  the  nature  of  your 
subject;  and  never  for  a  moment  to  forget:  "I  am  not  writing 
this  to  please  myself.  For  whom  am  I  writing?  Will  they 
understand  this?  Will  they  like  this?  Do  they  already 
know  this?  What  more  will  they  wish  to  know?" 

In  this  attitude  of  mind  anyone  can  learn  to  write  an  in- 
teresting paper  on  any  subject  about  which  he  has  something 
special  to  say. 

ASSIGNMENT 

1.  Make  a  list  from  the  magazines  suggested  on  p.  339  above  of 
all  the  principal  informative  articles  in  the  current  number,  and 
check  those  which  seem  to  you  most  likely  to  meet  with  popular 
approval.    Be  prepared  to  defend  your  opinions  in  class. 

2.  Try  to  find  one  or  more  subjects  for  articles  from  several  issues 
of  a  newspaper;  and  bring  to  class  suggestions  for  treating  these 
subjects.     Outline  in  writing  one  about  which  you  already  have 
some  special  knowledge,  leaving  gaps  where  your  knowledge  ends, 
but  indicating  how  these  gaps  may  be  filled  when  you  have  looked 
up  the  subject. 

3.  Criticize  the  possibilities  of  the  following  general  subjects 
for  informative  articles.     Wherever  you  can,  limit  one  so  that  it 
could  be  used  for  such  a  purpose.     State  the  magazine  for  which 
you  think  each  article  would  be  suited: 

Municipal  Government  in  England  and  in  America;  How  to 
Make  Alfalfa  Pay;  How  to  Play  Golf;  The  Balkans;  The  Latest 
Uses  of  Electricity;  The  Districts  of  Russia;  Vocational  Training; 
How  Aeroplanes  are  Made;  Finding  Jobs  for  Crippled  Soldiers; 
Waste;  Atlantic  Harbors;  How  Incriminating  Documents  are  Hid- 
den at  the  Customs;  How  Switzerland  Keeps  Neutral;  How  the 
War  Has  Helped  Women;  Patriotism;  Transportation;  Carrier- 
Pigeons;  The  Wireless  Telephone  in  the  Aeroplane. 


346  THE  WRITING  OF  ENGLISH 

4.  Make  a  careful  abstract  of  less  than  300  words  of  an  article 
in  which  you  were  especially  interested.     Then  without  looking 
at  the  article  again,  try  to  reproduce  it  as  nearly  as  you  can.    Aim 
to  get  in  all  the  ideas;  and  do  not  hesitate  to  use  the  examples  and 
details  if  you  remember  them.    Either  choose  an  article  of  less  than 
1000  words,  or  make  your  reproduction  to  scale  so  that  1000  words 
is  your  limit.     When  your  paper  is  finished,  compare  it  with  the 
original,  and  correct  it  in  two  ways:  Where  you  have  distorted  the 
ideas,  make  them  right;  where  you  have  quoted  the  exact  words  of 
the  original,  whether  consciously  or  unconsciously,  insert  quotation 
marks  unless  you  had  already  done  so. 

5.  Make  a  careful  outline  of  another  short  article  in  which  you 
are  interested,  and  copy  the  first  two  or  three  paragraphs — enough 
to  give  you  a  good  start;  then  with  your  outline,  finish  the  article 
in  as  nearly  as  possible  the  author's  spirit.    Later,  correct  the  ideas, 
and  give  credit  for  quotations  as  before. 

6.  The  following  newspaper  clippings  suggest  material  for  in- 
formative articles.     Choose  the  one  that  interests  you  especially 
and  work  it  up  in  300  words  or  more.     The  statements  may  be 
wrong,  or  the  plans  may  be  impracticable;  if  so,  your  article  should 
be  an  exposition  of  the  error: 

(1)  Absolute  proof  that  the  gravitational  attraction  between 
masses  of  matter  varies  with  changes  in  their  electrical  potential 
due  to  electrical  changes  upon  them  has  been  obtained  by  Dr. 
Francis  E.  Nipher  in  a  year  of  experiments  in  the  laboratory  of 
Washington  university,  St.  Louis.    It  is  said  that  Dr.  Nipher  has 
succeeeed  in  reversing  the  law  of  gravity. 

(2)  NEW   ORLEANS,   La. — New   Orleans'   climate   is    changing. 
Since  1900  it  has  risen  8  degrees  in  summer  and  dropped  4  degrees 
in  winter.    Dr.  I.  M.  Cline,  district  forecaster  of  the  weather  bureau, 
is  authority  for  the  statement. 

(3)  The  ideal  schoolhouse  for  any  American  city  is  one  that  will 
grow  with  the  community.     As  it  was  only  in  the  clays  of  fairy 
stories,  however,  that  houses  could  enlarge  and  shrink  at  will, 
something  modern  must  be  devised.     Fresno,  Cal.,  believes  that 
in  her  two  new  school  buildings  she  has  not  only  devised  something 
quite  novel,  but  that  the  long  felt  need  for  both  an  elastic  and  open 
air  school  plan  has  at  last  been  solved. 

(4)  Birds  in  their  relation  to  conservation  and  agricultural  in- 
crease. 

(5)  The  making  of  candies  is  not  ordinarily  considered  a  fine 
art,  but  the  Italians  have  made  it  such. 

(6)  Productive  mining  in  Alaska  began  in  1880,  and  it  is  esti- 
mated that  since  that  time  mineral  wealth  has  been  produced  to 


THE  SHORT  PAPER  347 

the  value  of  more  than  $200,000,000.  The  products  of  the  fisheries 
are  valued  at  more  than  $20,000,000  a  year  and  those  of  fur  bearing 
animals  also  have  considerable  value. 

(7)  LONDON. — It  is  announced  here  that  a  group  of  New  York 
financiers  have  acquired  the  patent  rights  for  the  manufacture  of  a 
triplex  glass  for  war  purposes. 

(8)  Vilhjalinur  Stefansson,  the  explorer,  now  in  the  arctic,  plans 
to  come  "outside"  next  fall  and  return  to  the  polar  region  with  a 
new  expedition  in  1920. 

(9)  Dr.  F.  C.  Brown  of  the  University  of  Iowa  is  the  inventor  of 
the  instrument,  which  consists  of  a  lens  placed  at  one  end  of  an 
oblong  box,  the  box  containing  selenium  crystals  so  disposed  that 
the  rays  of  light  concentrated  by  the  lens  fall  upon  them.     An 
electric  current  is  passed  through  the  selenium,  the  conductive 
power  of  which  varies  according  to  the  intensity  of  the  light.    By 
means  of  the  current,  musical  tones  are  produced  corresponding 
to  its  variations  occasioned  by  the  changing  conductivity  of  the 
selenium. 

When  the  box  is  passed  over  a  printed  page,  so  that  the  lens  is 
related  to  the  type  impression,  each  letter  produces  its  own  tone, 
and  these  varying  tones  are  communicated  to  the  blind  reader 
through  telephone  transmitters.  By  actual  experiment  it  has  been 
demonstrated  that  blind  persons  after  a  few  trials  can  readily  dis- 
tinguish the  different  letters,  and  some  are  able  to  spell  out  whole 
words.  It  is  believed  that  the  average  student  could  learn  to  read 
with  facility  in  two  months'  time. 

7.  Write  a  300-word  sketch  similar  to  the  following  on  (1)  the 
celebration  of  some  picturesque  festival  with  which  you  are  familiar, 
or  (2)  some  art  or  craft  work  observed  by  you  in  the  process,  or 
(3)  the  working  of  some  new  type  of  machine. 

JAPANESE  FESTIVALS 

"Decorations,  illuminations,  street  displays  of  every  sort,  but 
especially  those  of  holy  days,  compose  a  large  part  of  the  pleasures 
of  city  life  which  all  can  share.  The  appeals  thus  made  to  aesthetic 
fancy  at  festivals  represent  the  labor,  perhaps,  of  tens  of  thousands 
of  hands  and  brains;  but  each  individual  contributor  to  the  public 
effort  works  according  to  his  particular  thought  and  taste,  even 
while  obeying  old  rules,  so  that  the  total  ultimate  result  is  a  won- 
drous, a  bewildering,  an  incalculable  variety.  Anybody  can  con- 
tribute to  such  an  occasion;  and  everybody  does,  for  the  cheapest 
material  is  used.  Paper,  straw,  or  stone  makes  no  real  difference; 
the  art  sense  is  superbly  independent  of  the  material.  What  shapes 
that  material  is  perfect  comprehension  of  something  natural,  some- 
thing real.  Whether  a  blossom  made  of  chicken  feathers,  a  clay 


348  THE  WRITING  OF  ENGLISH 

turtle  or  duck  or  sparrow,  a  pasteboard  cricket  or  mantis  or  frog, 
the  idea  is  fully  conceived  and  exactly  realized.  Spiders  of  mud 
seem  to  be  spinning  webs;  butterflies  of  paper  delude  the  eye.  No 
models  are  needed  to  work  from; — or  rather,  the  model  in  every 
case  is  only  the  precise  memory  of  the  object  or  living  fact.  I 
asked  at  a  doll-maker's  for  twenty  tiny  paper  dolls,  each  with  a 
different  coiffure, — the  whole  set  to  represent  the  principal  Kyoto 
styles  of  dressing  women's  hair.  A  girl  went  to  work  with  white 
paper,  paint,  paste,  thin  slips  of  pine;  and  the  dolls  were  finished 
in  about  the  same  time  that  an  artist  would  have  taken  to  draw  a 
similar  number  of  such  figures.  The  actual  time  needed  was  only 
enough  for  the  necessary  digital  movements, — not  for  correcting, 
comparing,  improving:  the  image  in  the  brain  realized  itself  as  fast 
as  the  slender  hands  could  work.  Thus  most  of  the  wonders  of 
festival  nights  are  created:  toys  thrown  into  existence  with  a  twist 
of  the  fingers,  old  rags  turned  into  figured  draperies  with  a  few 
motions  of  the  brush,  pictures  made  with  sand." — Lafcadio  Hearn. 

8.  You  may  or  may  not  agree  with  the  ideas  of  the  passage  quoted 
below;  in  this  exercise  you  are  merely  asked  to  develop  them  as 
nearly  as  possible  along  the  original  lines,  but  in  your  own  phrasing 
and  with  your  own  illustrations.  You  may  quote  as  much  as  you 
please,  provided  that  you  indicate  quotation.  Write  a  thousand 
word  paper  for  such  a  magazine  as  Good  Housekeeping,  for  example, 
entitling  it  The  Simplification  of  Life. 

"...  People  as  a  rule,  being  extremely  muddle-headed  about 
life,  are  under  a  fixed  impression  that  the  more  they  can  acquire 
and  accumulate  in  any  department,  the  'better  off'  they  will  be, 
and  the  better  times  they  will  have.  Consequently  when  they  walk 
down  the  street  and  see  nice  things  in  the  shop  windows,  instead 
of  leaving  them  there,  if  they  have  any  money  in  their  pockets, 
they  buy  them  and  put  them  on  their  backs  or  into  their  mouths, 
or  in  their  rooms  and  round  their  walls;  and  then,  after  a  time, 
finding  the  result  not  very  satisfactory,  they  think  they  have  not 
bought  the  right  things,  and  so  go  out  again  and  buy  some  more. 
And  they  go  on  doing  this  in  a  blind  habitual  way  till  at  last  their 
bodies  and  lives  are  as  muddled  up  as  their  brains  are,  and  they  can 
hardly  move  about  or  enjoy  themselves  for  the  very  multitude  of 
their  possessions,  and  impediments,  and  duties,  and  responsibilities, 
and  diseases  connected  with  them. 

"  The  origin  of  this  absurd  conduct  is  of  course  easy  to  see.  It  is 
what  the  scientific  men  call  an  'atavism.'  In  the  case  of  most  of 
us,  our  ancestors,  a  few  generations  back,  were  no  doubt  actually 
in  want  (and  if  one  goes  far  enough  this  is  true  of  everybody) — 
in  want  of  sufficient  food  or  sufficient  clothing.  Consequently  it 


THE  SHORT  PAPER  349 

became  a  fixed  'principle'  in  those  days,  when  you  saw  a  chance, 

to  accumulate  as  much  as  you  could 

Savages  when  they  come  across  a  good  square  meal 

,  ,  .  The  gratification  of  fixed  ideas,  unlike  the  gratification  of  a 
living  need,  seems  to  be  a  kind  of  mechanical  thing,  supposed 
to  be  necessary,  but  certainly  burdensome,  and  bringing  little 
enjoyment  with  it.  And  progress.  .  .  . 

"There  are  different  ways  of  dealing  with  this  question  of  Ac- 
cumulation, which  so  harasses  modern  life.  The  first  may  be  called 
the  method  of  Thoreau.  .  .  . 

"Personally  I  like  to  have  a  few  things  of  beauty  about  me; 
and  as  it  happens  that  I  dust  and  clean  out  my  room  myself,  I  know 
exactly  how  much  trouble  each  thing  in  it  is,  and  whether  the 
trouble  is  compensated  by  the  pleasure.  .  .  . 

"...  But  now  there  is  another  class  of  folk  who,  experiencing 
the  pleasure  of  having  certain  possessions,  are  not  willing  to  undergo 
the  labor  of  keeping  them  in  order.  .  .  .  They  therefore  buy  serv- 
ants and  attendants  to  keep  the  things  in  order  for  them.  .  .  . 

"The  problem  is  not  escaped.  .   .   . 

"All  this,  however,  does  not  prove  that  servants  are  necessarily 
a  mistake.  Because  you  get  rid  of  one  idee  fixe  it  does  not  follow 
that  you  must  enslave  yourself  to  its  opposite.  .  .  . 

"Life  is  an  art,  and  a  very  fine  art.  One  of  its  first  necessities  is 
that  you  should  not  have  more  material  in  it — more  chairs  and 
tables,  servants,  houses,  lands,  bankshares,  friends,  acquaintances, 
and  so  forth,  than  you  can  really  handle.  It  is  no  good  pretending 
that  you  are  obliged  to  have  them.  You  must  cut  that  nonsense 
short.  .  .  . 

"It  is  so  much  better  to  be  rude  to  needless  acquaintances  than 
to  feign  you  like  them,  and  so  muddle  up  both  their  lives  and  yours 
with  a  fraud. 

"In  a  well-painted  picture  there  isn't  a  grain  of  paint  which  is 
mere  material.  All  is  expression.  And  yet  life  is  a  greater  art  than 
painting  pictures.  Modern  civilized  folk  are  like  people  sitting 
helplessly  in  the  midst  of  heaps  of  paint-cans  and  brushes — and 
ever  accumulating  more;  but  when  they  are  going  to  produce  any- 
thing lovely  or  worth  looking  at  in  their  own  lives,  Heaven  only 
knows." — Edward  Carpenter. 

9.  Write  an  outline,  then  an  article  of  500-800  words,  on  some 
subject  of  your  own  choosing.  Hand  in  the  outline,  the  rough  draft 
of  the  paper,  and  the  finished  draft  at  the  same  time.  Write  on  the 
first  page  of  the  final  draft  the  name  of  the  magazine  for  which  you 
assume  yourself  to  be  writing,  together  with  your  reason  for  choice 
of  subject  and  of  magazine. 


350  THE  WRITING  OF  ENGLISH 

3.  THE  INFORMAL  ESSAY 

The  word  essay  means  attempt;  the  purpose  of  the  essay 
is  not  to  collect  and  summarize  facts,  but  to  interpret  them. 
It  may  deal  with  any  sort  of  subject;  but  as  a  rule  is  not  con- 
cerned with  science.  It  turns  rather  to  the  criticism  of  art 
in  all  its  forms,  including  literature;  to  the  observation  and 
interpretation  of  Nature,  including  animal  life;  to  the  ob- 
servation and  interpretation  of  human  nature,  manners, 
morals,  customs,  and  so  on;  and  to  the  expression  of  idiosyn- 
crasy in  all  its  forms. 

The  art  of  essay  writing  lies  in  being  one's  self  and  in  being 
interesting.  To  be  one's  self  requires  the  cultivation  of  the 
individualistic  as  over  against  the  inborn  sheep-instinct  of 
the  human  race;  to  be  interesting  requires  the  cultivation  of 
the  imagination.  For  neither  of  these  achievements  is  it 
possible  here  to  give  more  than  a  few  very  general  suggestions. 
Clear  recognition  of  the  meaning  and  worth  of  the  ideals 
themselves  is  the  first  essential — recognition  of  the  power 
that  grows  out  of  independent  thinking,  and  of  the  pleasure 
that  accompanies  the  play  of  the  mind  in  dealing  with  all  the 
routine,  the  veriest  commonplaces,  of  life.  These  ideals 
must  be  felt;  they  cannot  be  communicated  by  precept. 
They  can  be  realized  partly  by  observation  of  persons  who 
have  such  ideals,  and  more  easily  perhaps — certainly  at 
first — by  reading  the  characters  of  such  personalities  through 
their  essays — their  "attempts"  at  self-expression. 

The  word  essay  has  been  and  is  still  used  to  describe  the 
kind  of  writing  which  we  have  called  "the  informative  ar- 
ticle"; and  there  are  some  essays  of  which  the  informative 
purpose  clashes  with  the  highly  personal  method  and  pro- 
duces a  hybrid — notably,  the  essays  of  Carlyle.  But  the 
flexibility  of  thought  and  ease  of  expression  which  mark  the 
true  essay  can  be  seen  to  most  advantage  perhaps  in  the 
work  of  Addison  and  Steele,  Lamb,  Stevenson,  E.  V.  Lucas, 


THE  SHORT  PAPER  351 

Max  Beerhohm,  S.  M.  Crothers,  who  show  a  happy  irre- 
sponsibility in  the  choice  of  subject,  and  are  concerned  only 
with  delight  in  the  play  of  the  mind. 

Beyond  this  recognition  of  the  ideal,  a  deliberate  effort  to 
free  the  mind  from  its  tendency  to  passive  acceptance  of  ideas 
merely  because  other  people  think  them,  and  to  encourage 
it  to  set  up  an  idea-factory  of  its  own,  goes  into  the  making 
of  an  essayist.  And  finally,  control,  if  not  mastery,  of  Eng- 
lish is  essential.  These  are  hard  conditions;  but  they  are 
mitigated  in  two  ways.  One  is  that  every  effort  to  meet  them 
brings  its  own  reward  in  mental  stimulation,  and  the  other, 
that  in  the  infinite  variety  of  essay  material  there  is  usually 
something  to  appeal  to  minds  of  every  type.  Practice  in 
writing  informative  articles  leads  to  clear  thinking  and  sound 
organization  of  thought;  practice  in  essay  writing  leads  to 
stimulation  of  the  imaginative  processes. 

ASSIGNMENT 

1.  Read  for  an  hour  or  so  at  random,  as  the  titles  attract  you,  in 
the  essays  of  one  of  the  following  authors,  making  notes  of  any  kind 
that  suggest  themselves  to  you: 

Montaigne,  Addison  and  Steele  (  the  Spectator  and  the  Toiler), 
Lamb,  Stevenson,  E.  V.  Lucas,  Max  Beerbohm,  S.  M.  Crothers, 
A.  C.  Benson.  Discuss  the  qualities  of  these  essayists. 

2.  Write  a  paper  of  300-500  words,  embodying  your  ideas  as  to 
the  qualities  that  make  an  essay  worth  reading. 

3.  Write  an  essay  on  Our  Clothes.     The  following  extract  may 
give  you  a  point  of  view: 

"  If  the  Greek  sculptors  were  to  come  to  life  again  and  cut  us  out 
in  bas-relief  for  another  Parthenon,  they  would  have  to  represent  us 
shuffling  along,  heads  down  and  coat-tails  flying,  splash-splosh — a 
nation  of  umbrellas." — Richard  Jefferies. 

4.  THE  NATURE  STUDY 

The  value  of  the  Nature  study  depends  much  more  upon 
the  matter  than  upon  the  manner.  If  you  love  wild  life, 


352  THE  WRITING  OF  ENGLISH 

as  John  Muir,  John  Burroughs,  Richard  Jefferies,  and  W.  H. 
Hudson,  for  example,  have  loved  it,  you  can  scarcely  fail 
to  write  interestingly  about  it.  If  you  have  not  the  material 
based  upon  continued,  close,  and  intimate  observation,  you 
cannot  make  up  for  the  lack  by  any  method  whatever. 

There  is  no  reason,  however,  why  you  should  not  practise, 
with  such  material  as  you  have  observed,  the  form  which  a 
Nature  study  usually  takes.  It  is  commonly  a  tissue  of 
narration  and  description  closely  intertwined,  telling  the 
conditions  under  which  observations  were  made,  and  the 
results  of  the  observations,  together  with  the  author's  inter- 
pretations of  them.  The  following  passages  show  the  in- 
timate association  of  the  three  processes: 

If  any  one  were  to  get  up  about  half-past  five  on  an  August 
morning  and  look  out  of  an  eastern  window  in  the  country,  he  would 
see  the  distant  trees  almost  hidden  by  a  white  mist.  The  tops  of 
the  larger  groups  of  elms  would  appear  above  it,  and  by  these  the 
line  of  the  hedgerows  could  be  traced.  Tier  after  tier  they  stretch 
along,  rising  by  degrees  on  a  gentle  slope,  the  space  between  filled 
with  haze.  Whether  there  were  corn-fields  or  meadows  under  this 
white  cloud  he  could  not  tell — a  cloud  that  might  have  come  down 
from  the  sky,  leaving  it  a  clear  azure.  This  morning  haze  means 
intense  heat  in  the  day.  It  is  hot  already,  very  hot,  for  the  sun  is 
shining  with  all  his  strength,  and  if  you  wish  the  house  to  be  cool 
it  is  time  to  set  the  sunblinds 

Pure  color  almost  always  gives  the  idea  of  fire,  or  rather  it  is 
perhaps  as  if  a  light  shone  through  as  well  as  color  itself.  The 
fresh  green  blade  of  corn  is  like  this,  so  pellucid,  so  clear  and  pure 
in  its  green  as  to  seem  to  shine  with  color.  It  is  not  brilliant — not 
a  surface  gleam  or  an  enamel, — it  is  stained  through.  Beside  the 
moist  clods  the  slender  flags  arise  filled  with  the  sweetness  of  the 
earth.'  Out  of  the  darkness  under — that  darkness  which  knows  no 
day  save  when  the  ploughshare  opens  its  chinks — they  have  come 
to  the  light.  To  the  light  they  have  brought  a  color  which  will 
attract  the  sunbeams  from  now  till  harvest. — Richard  Jefferies. 

The  following  passage  is  chiefly  narrative,  including  much 
description,  but  its  expository  purpose  is  sharply  indicated 
in  the  concluding  paragraph: 


THE  SHORT  PAPER  353 

So  here  I  waited,  crouched  at  the  foot  of  a  clump  of  lofty  bam- 
boos, my  light  shut  off,  and  realizing  as  never  before,  the  mystery 
of  a  tropical  jungle  at  night.  A  quarter  of  a  mile  away,  the  mag- 
nificent bird  was  calling  at  intervals,  from  just  some  such  place  as  I 
was  in.  When  my  eyes  recovered  from  the  glare  of  the  light,  I  found 
that  the  jungle  was  far  from  dark.  The  night  was  moonless  and  not 
a  glimmer  of  star  came  through  the  thick  foliage  overhead.  But 
a  thousand  shapes  of  twig  and  leaf  shone  dimly  with  the  steady  dull 
blue-green  phosphorus  glow  of  fox-fire. 

Once  a  firefly  passed  through  the  bamboos  —  a  mere  shooting  star 
amid  all  these  terrestrial  constellations.  The  mould  beneath  my 
feet  might  change  to  peat,  or,  in  future  ages,  to  coal,  but  even  then 
the  alchemy  of  fire  would  be  needed  to  awaken  the  imprisoned  light. 
Here,  from  plants  still  erect,  which  were  blossoming  but  a  short 
month  ago,  a  thousand  gleams  shone  forth,  defying  the  blackness  of 
night. 

Some  small  animal  passed  to  windward  of  me,  sniffed,  and  fled 
at  full  speed!  The  wings  of  a  bat  or  other  flying  creature  whistled 
near,  while  ever  the  resonant  call  of  the  ocellated  bird  rang  out, 
mocking  my  helplessness.  The  firefly  could  make  its  way  through 
tangle  and  thorns  to  the  very  spot  where  the  bird  stood.  The  small 
four-footed  creature  of  the  night  could  creep  noiselessly  over  dried 
bamboo  sheaths  until  his  little  eyes  marked  the  swelling  throat  of 
the  calling  pheasant.  But  here  was  I,  with  a  powerful  electric 
light,  with  the  most  penetrating  of  night-glasses,  with  knowledge 
of  savage  woodlore,  and  with  human  reasoning  power;  and  yet  with 
feet  shod  with  noise,  with  clothing  to  catch  on  every  thorn  —  a  hol- 
low mockery  of  a  'lord  of  creation'! 

Again  the  bird  called,  and  I  interpreted  its  message.  The  law  of 
compensation!  I  was  helpless  to  reach  it,  I  was  degenerate  indeed 
in  the  activities  of  the  primitive  jungle-folk,  but  I  thrilled  at  the 
mysteries  of  the  nocturnal  life.  My  pulse  leaped  at  the  wild  call  — 
not  from  a  carnivore's  desire  for  food,  or  from  the  startled  terror 
of  the  lesser  wilderness  people,  but  because  of  the  human-born 
thirst  for  knowledge,  from  the  delights  of  the  imagination  which 
are  for  man  alone.  —  Williain  Beebe. 


If  you  have  the  desire  to  write  Nature  studies,  and  feel 
that  you  have  material,  you  cannot  do  better  than  study  the 
work  of  Muir,  Burroughs,  Jefferies,  and  Hudson  (many  of 
his  essays  are  not  in  volume  form,  but  are  reproduced  in 


354  THE  WRITING  OF  ENGLISH 

Littell's  Living  Age).     Of  younger  writers,  Long,  Roberts, 
William  Beebe,  and  Dallas  Lore  Sharp  may  be  mentioned. 

What  has  been  said  about  the  Nature  study  applies  also 
to  the  sketch  of  travel;  but  this  should  rarely  be  attempted 
except  by  the  expert. 

ASSIGNMENT 

Choose  your  own  material,  and  write  a  500-word  study  of  some 
aspect  of  Nature  which  you  yourself  have  observed.  Suggested 
topics  are:  (1)  The  Habits  of  Some  Wild  Animal;  (2)  Song  of  Some 
Bird;  (3)  Where  I  go  Fishing;  (4)  Water  in  a  Storm;  (5)  Tree  Move- 
ments in  Wind;  (6)  The  Effects  of  Frost  or  Sleet  on  a  Landscape; 
(7)  The  First  Wild  Flowers;  (8)  Spring  in  the  City;  (9)  Different 
Kinds  of  Rain;  (10)  The  Prairie;  (11)  The  Desert;  (12)  The  Tama- 
rack Swamp;  (13)  The  Dunes;  (14)  The  Habitat  of  Certain  Wild 
Flowers. 

5.  STUDIES  IN  HUMAN  NATURE 

Essays  of  this  type  are  innumerable.  They  embrace  char- 
acter studies,  and  observations  on  the  customs,  manners, 
and  morals  of  society.  You  can  quickly  see  the  range  of  the 
subject  by  comparing  the  tables  of  contents  of  the  Spectator 
and  the  Toiler  with  that  of  the  Contributors'  Club  in  one  or 
two  bound  volumes  of  the  Atlantic  or  the  Point  of  View  in 
Scribner's  Magazine  or  the  Editor's  Drawer  in  Harper's. 

Character  essays  may  be  written  in  two  ways :  by  describing 
and  explaining  the  qualities  of  a  class,  in  the  singular  or 
plural,  as:  Bores;  The  Good-Natured  Man;  or  by  embodying 
the  qualities  of  a  class  in  a  typical  individual,  definitely 
localized  and  named,  as:  Sir  Andrew  Freeport,  typical  city 
merchant. 

The  second  method  is  the  more  difficult  and  the  more  in- 
teresting. It  is  done  precisely  as  a  character  in  fiction  is 
developed,  except  that  the  person  is  posed  and  viewed  from 
many  angles,  but  not  subject  to  the  evolution  of  qualities  by 
means  of  a  succession  of  circumstances.  The  character 


THE  SHORT  PAPER  355 

should  be  presented  with  all  the  vividness  that  can  be  gained 
from  description  of  surroundings,  dress,  personal  appearance, 
manner,  speech,  effect  upon  others,  and  so  on.  A  familiar 
example  is  Sir  Roger  de  Coverly.  For  methods  of  doing  this, 
see  p.  214  above. 

The  interpretation  of  the  character  of  a  class  proceeds 
from  a  careful  analysis  of  striking  qualities,  and  is  interesting 
as  a  rule  only  in  so  far  as  it  succeeds  in  embodying  these  in 
lively  and  amusing  incidents,  which  may  be  presented  as  if 
they  were  incidents  in  a  short  story. 

Very  similar  is  the  procedure  in  essays  on  customs,  man- 
ners, or  morals;  but  in  so  far  as  the  subject  is  more  effective 
in  proportion  as  it  is  limited  to  a  single  striking  observation — 
for  example,  on  the  joy  of  not  getting  up  in  the  morning — its 
very  simplicity  demands  a  play  of  variety  in  the  choice  of 
incident  to  make  the  result  worth  reading.  This  playing 
round  about  a  single  strand  of  thought  is  admirably  illustrated 
in  the  following: 

Even  to-day,  however,  there  are  many  fortunate  persons  who 
are  ever  awakened  by  an  alarm-clock — that  watchman's  rattle,  as 
it  were,  of  Policeman  Day.  The  invention  is  comparatively  recent. 
Without  trying  to  uncover  the  identity  of  the  inventor,  and  thus 
adding  one  more  to  the  Who's  Who  of  Pernicious  Persons,  we  may 
assume  that  it  belongs  naturally  to  the  age  of  small  and  cheap  clocks 
that  dawned  only  in  the  nineteenth  century.  Some  desire  for  it 
existed  earlier.  The  learned  Mrs.  Carter,  said  Dr.  Johnson,  "  at  a 
time  when  she  was  eager  in  study,  did  not  awake  as  early  as  she 
wished,  and  she  therefore  had  a  contrivance  that,  at  a  certain  hour, 
her  chamber  light  should  burn  a  string  to  which  a  heavy  weight 
was  suspended,  which  then  fell  with  a  sudden  strong  noise:  this 
roused  her  from  her  sleep,  and  then  she  had  no  difficulty  in  getting 
up." 

This  device,  we  judge,  was  peculiar  to  Mrs.  Carter,  than  whom 
a  less  eager  student  would  have  congratulated  herself  that  the 
sudden  strong  noise  was  over,  and  gone  sweetly  to  sleep  again.  The 
venerable  Bishop  Ken,  who  believed  that  a  man  "should  take  no 
more  sleep  than  he  can  take  at  once,"  had  no  need  of  it.  He  got  up, 


356  THE  WRITING  OF  ENGLISH 

we  are  told,  at  one  or  two  o'clock  in  the  morning  "  and  sometimes 
earlier,"  and  played  the  lute  before  putting  on  his  clothes. 

To  me  the  interesting  thing  about  these  historic  figures  is  that 
they  get  up  with  such  elastic  promptness,  the  one  to  study  and 
the  other  to  play  the  lute.  The  Bishop  seems  a  shade  the  more 
eager;  but  there  are  details  that  Mrs.  Carter  would  naturally  have 
refrained  from  mentioning  to  Dr.  Johnson,  even  at  the  brimming 
moment  when  he  had  just  accepted  her  contribution  to  the  Rambler. 
For  most  of  us — or  alarm-clocks  would  not  be  made  to  ring  con- 
tinuously until  the  harassed  bed-warmer  gets  up  and  stops  the 
racket — this  getting  out  of  bed  is  no  such  easy  matter;  and  perhaps 
it  will  be  the  same  when  Gabriel's  trumpet  is  the  alarm-clock.  We 
are  more  like  Boswell,  honest  sleeper,  and  have  "  thought  of  a  pulley 
to  raise  me  gradually";  and  then  have  thought  again  and  realized 
that  even  a  pulley  "  would  give  me  pain,  as  it  would  counteract  my 
internal  disposition."  Let  the  world  go  hang,  our  internal  disposition 
is  to  stay  in  bed:  we  cling  tenaciously  to  non-existence — or  rather, 
to  that  third  state  of  consciousness  when  we  are  in  the  world  but 
not  of  it. — Contributors'  Club  in  the  Atlantic  Monthly. 

From  this  you  see  the  wide  range  of  associations  that  can  be 
brought  into  play  to  make  one  idea  interesting.  Success  will 
depend  partly  upon  the  truth  and  universality  of  appeal  of 
the  subject,  and  partly  upon  the  power  of  the  writer  to  make 
unexpected  and  delightful — if  possible,  humorous — applica- 
tions of  incident  in  the  development  of  it. 

ASSIGNMENT 

1.  Make  as  long  a  list  as  you  can  in  two  hours  of  subjects  for 
essays  of  this  type  as  you  have  found  them  in  the  works  of  any  of  the 
essayists  mentioned  on  pp.  350f .  or  in  any  others  of  recognized  stand- 
ing; and  then  supplement  this  list  by  five  subjects  of  your  own  of 
the  same  general  type,  which  you  have  not  seen  developed. 

2.  Write  a  character  study  in  about  300  words  of  one  of  the  fol- 
lowing types;  give  your  subject  a  suitable  name,  describe  dress, 
appearance,  etc.,  and  quote  characteristic  speech.     If  you  prefer, 
you  may  substitute  a  type  of  your  own: 

The  freshman  who  knows  it  all;  the  absent-minded  man;  the 
woman  who  must  be  fashionable;  the  bargain-hunter;  the  penny- 
wise;  a  member  of  the  Bird  Club;  the  janitor;  the  first  violin;  the 


THE  SHORT  PAPER  357 

telegraph  boy;  the  girl  at  the  ribbon  counter;  the  woman  who  cannot 
learn  golf;  the  helpful  man;  the  gum-chew er;  the  cat-lover;  the  cat- 
hater;  the  streetcar  conductor;  the  butcher;  the  policeman;  the  man 
who  hangs  about  the  city  hall;  the  woman  in  the  Pullman  dressing- 
room;  the  baby  that  cries. 

3.  Write  the  same  study  or  another  of  the  same  kind,  using  a 
different  method. 

4.  Write  about  300  words  on  one  of  the  following  subjects  or  on 
a  similar  subject  of  your  own: 

A  row  of  boots  and  shoes  on  the  streetcar;  moving  day;  the  spring 
hat;  dressing  in  a  hurry;  shabby  gloves;  the  way  we  walk;  the 
whistling  man;  "extry  paper";  what's  in  a  necktie;  how  we  take 
notes  in  class ;  the  campus  in  the  rain. 


6.  THE  BIOGRAPHICAL  STUDY,  I 

Biography  is  the  imaginative  reconstruction  of  a  life  as 
nearly  as  possible  as  it  was  lived.  In  this  work  the  biographer 
may  be  hampered  in  either  of  two  ways:  he  may  find  too 
much  material  or  too  little. 

If  he  finds  too  much,  he  must  use  the  methods  of  narration 
for  sifting  out  what  are  the  most  important  events,  the 
methods  of  exposition  for  choosing  what  is  significant  for 
character,  and  the  methods  used  in  argument  for  distinguish- 
ing between  authorities  and  rejecting  those  that  have 
nothing  to  contribute. 

If  he  finds  too  little,  the  testing  of  what  there  is  becomes 
peculiarly  important,  in  order  that  he  may  have  a  solid  basis 
on  which  to  set  the  constructive  imagination  to  work. 

These  two  conditions  require  separate  discussion. 

With  abundance  of  material,  your  best  way  is  to  begin 
by  reading  a  reliable  summary  of  the  career  in  some  good  dic- 
tionary of  biography  or  encyclopaedia.  At  the  end  of  the 
article  you  will  usually  find  references  to  the  authorities 
upon  which  it  is  chiefly  based.  These  you  should  note  as 
the  beginning  of  a  bibliography.  In  your  reading  of  the 
article  you  will  have  observed  some  phases  of  the  life  which 


358  THE  WRITING  OF  ENGLISH 

interest  you  more  than  others — determined,  naturally,  by 
your  own  occupations  and  tastes.  These  you  should  also 
note  on  cards  as  clues  in  your  further  reading.  If  you  are 
reading  about  Scott,  for  example,  you  may  be  attracted 
especially  by  the  account  of  his  life  as  a  country  gentleman, 
or  by  his  antiquarian  interests,  or  by  his  friendship  with  the 
little  girl,  Marjorie  Fleming.  Whatever  outstanding  features 
of  the  life  attract  you,  these  you  should  bear  sharply  in  mind. 
Then  before  you  finally  limit  your  subject,  you  should  turn 
to  the  periodical  indexes  to  see  whether  these  phases  of  the 
subject  have  already  been  written  about  sufficiently — there 
is  no  reason  for  going  over  old  ground — and  if  so,  choose 
another  aspect,  one  with  which  your  constructive  imagination 
can  really  find  something  to  do. 

Then  look  up  your  authorities,  beginning  with  the  best: 
what  the  man  tells  about  himself  in  diary  or  letters  or  auto- 
biography; what  his  relatives,  or  friends,  or  contemporaries 
tell  about  him;  and  finally  what  the  best  compilers  of  his 
biography,  who  have  used  the  same  original  sources,  have 
concluded  about  him.  These  last  are  valuable  as  a  counter- 
balance for  your  untried,  perhaps  over-hasty  judgment; 
but  their  value  as  evidence  cannot  be  weighed  a  moment  as 
against  that  of  firsthand  authorities.' 

To  make  your  study  interesting,  you  may  make  free  use  of 
original  materials,  always,  of  course,  giving  due  credit  in 
footnotes.  Instead  of  generalizing,  tell  anecdotes,  quote 
sayings,  describe  personal  appearance — give  your  presenta- 
tion as  concrete  and  suggestive  a  form  as  possible.  In  this 
you  may  use  the  methods  that  you  employ  in  fiction  and 
the  drama,  provided  that  each  assertion  rests  upon  well- 
authenticated  fact. 

Where  there  is  no  lack  of  material,  a  good  biographical 
sketch  involves  only  three  main  problems:  (1)  organization 
on  a  single  unifying  principle;  (2)  truth;  (3)  vividness. 


THE  SHORT  PAPER  359 

ASSIGNMENT 

1.  Limit  each  of  the  following  subjects  so  that  it  could  be  treated 
in  a  500-word   sketch:   Alexander  Hamilton,   Abraham   Lincoln, 
Daniel  Boone,  Bret  Harte,  Stonewall  Jackson,  Mary  Stuart,  Harriet 
Beecher  Stowe,  Benjamin  Franklin,  Julius  Caesar,  Michael  Angelo, 
King  Alfred,  Samuel  Johnson. 

2.  Discuss  in  class  the  life  and  character  of  some  person  now  much 
in  the  public  eye.     Use  as  the  basis  of  your  discussion  material 
found  in  current  literature. 

3.  Write  in  about  500  words  a  biographical  study  on  one  of  the 
following  subjects: 

(1)  Scott  and  Marjorie  Fleming 

(2)  Dr.  Johnson's  attitude  toward  David  Garrick 

(3)  How  Samuel  Pepys  Entertained 

(4)  Washington's  Life  at  Mount  Vernon 

(5)  Your  own  choice 

7.  THE  BIOGRAPHICAL  STUDY,  II 

When  there  are  too  few  facts,  your  problem  is  to  get  the 
full  meaning  of  such  as  there  are.  Here  the  process  is  of 
drawing  correct  inferences,  all  the  inferences,  and  no  others. 
This  is  not  to  be  learned  in  a  few  lessons;  but  it  should  be 
acquired  in  a  college  course,  and  the  beginning  should  be 
made  in  freshman  English. 

Suppose  you  are  asked  to  sketch  the  life  of  Shakespeare's 
daughter,  Susannah.  What  is  known  about  her?  You 
will  find  the  date  of  her  baptism  duly  recorded,  her  mar- 
riage to  Dr.  John  Hall,  her  appointment  as  her  father's 
executor,  her  inheritance  of  the  bulk  of  his  property,  and  a 
highly  laudatory  epitaph — these  are  about  all  the  facts.  But 
they  are  associated  with  other  facts,  and  the  two  groups  of 
facts  considered  together  involve  inferences  that  tell  a  good 
deal  more. 

We  know,  for  example,  that  there  were  two  younger  chil- 
dren— twins;  that  Shakespeare  was  away  from  home  most 
of  the  time  during  their  early  years,  and  that  the  family  was 


360  THE  WRITING  OF  ENGLISH 

poor;  that  the  maternal  grandparents  were  plain  yeomen, 
while  the  paternal  grandparents  were  well-connected,  had 
been  well-to-do  and  important  people  in  the  town,  but  had 
come  down  in  the  world;  that  the  little  brother,  Hamnet, 
died  when  he  was  eleven  years  old  and  Susannah  thirteen; 
that  soon  after,  Shakespeare,  who  by  this  time  was  successful, 
bought  property  and  the  finest  house  in  town,  and  that  he 
obtained  a  coat-of-arms,  thus  becoming  a  "gentleman," 
and  that  from  that  period  he  was  much  more  at  home;  that 
Dr.  John  Hall  was  a  distinguished  and  learned  man,  and 
Puritan  in  his  tenets;  that  Susannah's  epitaph  declared  her 
to  have  been  possessed  not  only  of  all  the  virtues,  but  also 
of  something  of  her  father's  wit. 

These  are  only  some  of  the  facts  which  envisage  or  surround 
the  immediate  facts  of  Susannah's  life.  From  them  all  we 
infer  that  she  was  a  woman  acquainted  with  poverty,  with 
sorrow,  with  country  life,  with  small  town  prosperity,  with 
the  experiences  of  a  country  doctor's  wife;  that  she  had  some 
business  ability,  that  she  stood  in  close  relationship  with  her 
great  father,  and  so  on. 

But  in  the  very  charm  of  these  inferences  lies  their  danger. 
It  is  so  easy  to  forget,  as  soon  as  we  get  away  from  actual 
fact,  whether  an  inference  is  reasonably  certain,  or  probable, 
or  only  possible;  and  to  build  inference  upon  inference  until 
the  whole  structure  is  unsubstantial  and  topples  at  a  critical 
word.  For  instance,  we  know  that  Susannah  Hall  lived  in 
a  house  with  a  library;  but  we  are  not  therefore  warranted  in 
assuming  that  she  read  the  books,  or  even  that  she  could 
read  at  all.  If  she  had  been  lacking  in  business  ability,  she 
would  not  have  been  made  her  father's  executor;  but  as  to 
the  nature  of  her  education  we  are  entirely  ignorant.  It  is 
probable — as  might  be  shown — that  she  had  some  training; 
it  is  possible  that  she  had  a  good  deal;  but  as  to  this  we  can- 
not say. 

Where  there  is  little  written  material  about  a  person, 


THE  SHORT  PAPER  361 

tangible  things  associated  with  him,  always  valuable  for  in- 
terpretation of  character  and  mode  of  life,  become  peculiarly 
important.  The  house  that  he  lived  in,  the  town,  the  land- 
scape, the  garden  that  he  made,  the  furniture,  his  various 
personal  possessions,  portraits — everything  that  in  any  way 
bears  the  impress  of  the  personality  with  which  it  was  once 
associated  helps  to  throw  light.  If  you  visit  a  room  in  which 
Queen  Elizabeth  once  sat  with  her  ladies,  and  see  the  very 
furniture  that  she  used,  her  card  table,  fancy  work  that  she 
made,  you  have  a  background  against  which  it  is  easy  for  the 
imagination  to  turn  her  portrait  hanging  on  the  wall  into 
something  like  a  real  woman. 

The  methods  used  in  reconstructing  a  single  life  apply  also, 
of  course,  to  the  historical  sketch,  which  endeavors  to  re- 
construct the  life  of  a  group,  a  city,  a  country. 

ASSIGNMENT 

1.  The  portraits  reproduced  between  pp.  362  and  363  are  of  Sir 
Thomas  More  and  his  daughter,  Cicely  Heron.  Study  them  to- 
gether as  introductory  to  a  study  of  Cicely  Heron's  life,  about  which 
very  little  is  known.  Begin  your  work  by  answering  the  following 
questions : 

What  common  characteristics  do  you  find  in  the  two  portraits? 
(If  you  have  access  to  a  good  art  gallery,  you  can  continue  the  work 
by  looking  up  the  Holbein  drawings  of  Cicely's  grandfather,  Judge 
More,  and  of  her  brother,  John  More.) 

What  qualities  in  Cicely's  face  are  not  found  in  her  father's? 

Does  she  look  intelligent?  frivolous?  seriousminded?  stupid? 
robust?  frail?  cold?  affectionate?  domineering?  humorous?  slow? 
quick?  hot-tempered?  malicious?  mean-spirited?  cold?  sensitive? 
coarse?  conscientious?  obstinate?  yielding? 

What  other  qualities  do  you  find  suggested?  (You  will  not  all 
agree  in  regard  to  them,  but  you  would  not  agree  altogether  if  you 
knew  her  as  a  living  woman.) 

Next,  read  the  account  of  her  father's  life  in  the  Dictionary  of 
National  Biography  to  find  such  facts  as  must  have  had  a  great  ef- 
fect upon  his  daughter's  life  and  character.  Note  these  carefully. 

Note  also  points  in  his  character  which  you  think  you  can  find 
in  her  face. 


362  THE  WRITING  OF  ENGLISH 

Then  write  a  500-word  biographical  study  of  Cicely  Heron.  Be 
very  careful  to  give  your  authority  for  every  inference,  and  to  dis- 
tinguish in  every  case  between  (1)  certain,  (2)  probable,  (3)  and 
possible.  If  you  do  not,  your  study  will  have  been  wasted,  and 
your  result  will  be  worthless. 

8.  THE  BIOGRAPHICAL  STUDY,  III 

In  discussing  a  writer  we  have  one  more  valuable  source 
of  information  for  biography,  and  that  is  internal  evidence 
from  his  work.  From  music  we  can  infer  but  little,  because 
of  the  impossibility  of  translating  musical  impressions  into 
words;  and  yet  the  difference  between  the  music  of  Beethoven 
and  Chopin  is  highly  instructive  as  to  the  personalities  of 
both.  From  art  we  get  much  more,  both  as  to  the  surround- 
ings of  the  artist  and  the  people  in  whom  he  was  interested, 
and  as  to  his  theory  of  life:  compare  for  example  the  Venus 
de  Milo,  a  Botticelli  Madonna,  and  a  Rembrandt  portrait. 
From  writings,  however,  we  learn  to  infer  much  that  the 
author  was  unconscious  of  revealing  about  himself.  Scarcely 
any  book  is  so  impersonal  that  it  does  not  give  some  informa- 
tion about  its  writer  to  him  who  knows  how  to  look  for  it. 

Here  we  must  distinguish  between  two  kinds  of  evidence. 
In  a  diary  or  autobiography  a  writer  may  say  what  he  pleases; 
he  may  be  more  or  less  self-deceived  or  even  untruthful. 
But  when  he  is  absorbed  in  another  subject  than  himself, 
what  he  unconsciously  shows  of  his  own  tastes  and  circum- 
stances and  character  is  almost  certainly  true.  For  instance, 
as  Shakespeare's  plays  are  full  of  talk  of  sport  and  the 
stable,  in  appropriate  and  inappropriate  circumstances, 
and  on  the  lips  of  characters  of  all  sorts,  we  may  safely  infer 
that  Shakespeare  himself  was  a  sportsman  and  fond  of  dogs 
and  horses.  As  a  writer's  own  experience  is  the  basis  on 
which  he  constructs  his  imaginative  work,  we  can  infer  from 
signs  that  appear  in  his  imaginative  work  the  nature  of 
his  general  experience.  It  is  not  safe  to  say  that  he  has  had 


SIR  THOMAS  MORE 
Portrait  by  Holbein 


•  " 

;; 


CICELY  HERON 
Portrait  by  Holbein 


THE  SHORT  PAPER  363 

any  particular  experience  described  in  his  work,  but  only 
that  he  is  familiar  with  the  general  type  of  that  sort  of 
experience  or  he  would  not  have  chosen  it  for  treatment — 
or  if  he  had,  his  ignorance  would  be  at  once  apparent.  We 
cannot  accuse  any  author  of  sharing  the  love  affairs  of  his 
hero  or  heroine,  but  if  he  knows  nothing  of  the  emotion  of 
love,  his  books  will  reveal  this  fact. 

On  the  other  hand,  we  must  distinguish  between  the  re- 
flection of  personal  experience  in  books,  and  the  reflection  of 
ideas  common  to  many  people  in  an  age.  Because  Shake- 
speare's work  is  full  of  puns,  we  cannot  infer  that  he  was  by 
nature  a  punster;  we  know  that  the  age  revelled  in  puns,  and 
the  inference  is  rather  that  he  had  the  wit  to  make  puns  and 
the  desire  to  please  his  audiences  with  them. 

So  in  inferring  biographical  facts  from  this  indirect  tes- 
timony, it  is  necessary  both  to  be  extremely  cautious  in  re- 
gard to  particular  facts,  and  to  compare  our  inferences  with 
what  is  known  of  the  popular  ideas  and  tastes  of  the  time  in 
which  our  subject  lived.  With  these  cautions  in  mind,  it  is 
well  to  begin  to  practise  inferential  work  of  this  kind  as  train- 
ing for  dealing  with  men  even  more  than  for  the  writing  of 
biography. 

The  writing  of  autobiography  requires  no  special  tech- 
nique, and  as  its  interest  depends  almost  entirely  upon  its 
material  and  its  spontaneity,  there  is  no  need  to  practise 
writing  it.  And  the  same  is  true  of  the  diary,  which  Stevenson 
calls  "a  school  of  posturing  and  melancholy  self-deception." 

ASSIGNMENT 

1.  If  you  have  access  to  Littell's  Living  Age,  look  up  in  the  in- 
dexes of  volumes,  working  backward  from  the  present  year,  articles 
by  W.  H.  Hudson.    Read  enough  of  these  to  give  you  data  for  a 
500-word  sketch  of  his  biography  and  temperament.     You  may 
use  facts  that  he  tells  about  himself;  but  rely  principally  upon  in- 
ferences as  to  his  ideas,  tastes,  and  habits. 

2.  Read  a  story  by  Joseph  Conrad,  preferably  Youth  or  Heart  of 


364  THE  WRITING  OF  ENGLISH 

Darkness  (you  will  find  these  and  others  by  referring  to  The  Reader's 
Guide,  if  they  are  not  accessible  in  volume  form),  and  write  about 
200  words  on  his  life  and  temperament.  Do  not  guess;  state  only 
what  can  be  inferred  with  certainty. 

3.  Write  a  brief  sketch  of  the  life  of  Jane  Austen  based  upon  the 
reading  of  one  of  her  novels.    Then  look  up  her  letters,  if  they  are 
accessible,  and  see  how  far  you  have  been  right.     Then — not  be- 
fore— read  the  account  of  her  in  the  Dictionary  of  National  Biog- 
raphy, or  some  other  standard  reference  book. 

4.  State  in  the  briefest  notes  possible  the  biographical  facts  that 
you  infer  from  each  of  the  following  passages,  and  use  these  notes 
as  a  basis  for  class  discussion: 

(1)  "Cyriack,  this  three  years'  day  these  eyes,  though  clear 
To  outward  view,  of  blemish  or  of  spot, 
Bereft  of  light,  their  seeing  have  forgot; 
Nor  to  then-  idle  orbs  doth  sight  appear 
Of  sun  or  moon  or  star  throughout  the  year, 
Of  man  or  woman.    Yet  I  argue  not 
Against  Heaven's  hand  or  will,  nor  bate  a  jot 
Of  heart  or  hope,  but  still  bear  up  and  steer 
Right  onward.    What  supports  me,  dost  thou  ask? 
The  conscience,  friend,  to  have  lost  them  overplied 
In  liberty's  defense,  my  noble  task, 
Of  which  all  Europe  talks  from  side  to  side. 

This  thought  might  lead  me  through  the  world's  vain  mask 
Content,  though  blind,  had  I  no  better  guide." 

— John  Milton. 

(<£)  "Next  Sunday,  Sunday,  July  3,  I  told  him  I  had  been  that 
morning  at  a  meeting  of  the  people  called  Quakers,  where  I  had 
heard  a  woman  preach.  Johnson:  'Sir,  a  woman's  preaching  is  like 
a  dog's  walking  on  his  hind  legs.  It  is  not  done  well;  but  you  are 
surprised  to  find  it  done  at  all.'  " — James  Boswell. 
(Infer  as  to  both  Boswell  and  Johnson.) 

(3)  "To  one  like  Elia,  whose  treasures  are  rather  cased  in  leather 
covers  than  closed  in  iron  coffers,  there  is  a  class  of  alienators  more 
formidable  than  that  which  I  have  touched  upon;  I  mean  your 
borrowers  of  books — those  mutilators  of  collections,  spoilers  of  the 
symmetry  of  shelves,  and  creators  of  odd  volumes." — Charles  Lamb. 

(4)  "For  great  Men  I  have  ever  had  the  warmest  predilection; 
and  can  perhaps  boast  that  few  such  in  this  era  have  wholly  escaped 
me.     Great  Men  are  the  inspired  (speaking  and  acting)  Texts  of 
that  divine  Book  of  Revelation,  whereof  a  Chapter  is  completed 
from  epoch  to  epoch,  and  by  some  named  History;  to  which  in- 
spired Texts  your  numerous  talented  men,  and  your  innumerable 
untalented  men,  are  the  better  or  worse  exegetic  Commentaries, 


THE  SHORT  PAPER  365 

and   wagon-load  of     too-stupid,   heretical  or    orthodox,   weekly 
Sermons." — Thomas  Carlyle. 

(5)  "Wealth,  again,  that  end  to  which  our  prodigious  works  for 
material  advantage  are  directed, — the  commonest  of  commonplaces 
tells  us  that  men  are  always  apt  to  regard  wealth  as  a  precious 
end  in  itself.  .  .  .  Now,  the  use  of  culture  is  that  it  helps  us,  by 
means  of  its  spiritual  standard  of  perfection,  to  regard  wealth  as 
but  machinery,  and  not  only  to  say  as  a  matter  of  words  that  we 
regard  wealth  as  but  machinery,  but  really  to  perceive  and  feel 
that  it  is  so." — Matthew  Arnold. 

9.  THE  PROPAGANDA  PAPER  OR  SPEECH 

The  commonest  use  of  the  processes  of  argument  is  in  the 
propaganda  paper.  This  in  its  simplest  and  briefest  form 
appears  in  the  editorial  of  the  newspaper  and  magazine;  it 
is  found  in  all  the  magazines  side  by  side  with  the  expository 
article,  and  in  the  field  of  religion  it  appears  as  the  sermon. 
The  propaganda  paper  is  merely  an  informal  argument  which 
does  not  hold  strictly  to  the  form  of  the  brief,  and  which 
inclines  to  emphasize  persuasion  even  at  the  expense  of  com- 
plete logic,  if  necessary.  To  this  end  we  find  argument 
blended  with  description,  narration,  and  exposition,  so 
closely  that  it  is  often  hard  to  say  where  the  one  begins  and 
the  other  ends.  It  gets  vividness  from  detailed  description, 
as,  for  instance,  in  the  elaboration  of  an  analogy.  It  gets 
dramatic  quality  from  narration,  when  a  situation  is  made  to 
live  again  before  the  audience;  for  instance,  a  history  of 
conditions  in  the  Philippines  before  we  annexed  them  used 
as  an  argument  for  annexation.  From  the  exposition  of 
accepted  truth  in  connection  with  an  argument,  the  argument 
itself  acquires  a  certain  solidity  in  the  minds  of  a  popular 
audience  or  popular  readers,  such  as  would  not  be  felt  from 
the  processes  of  argumentation  used  alone;  for  instance, 
when  a  full  exposition  of  the  known  conditions  that  would 
warrant  the  existence  of  life  on  Mars  precedes  the  argument 
by  analogy  that  Mars  is  inhabited. 

For  the  writing  of  papers  of  this  type,  few  special  directions 


366  THE  WRITING  OF  ENGLISH 

are  necessary.  Absolutely  clear  structure  is  essential  even 
though  the  structure  is  less  rigid  than  in  the  formal  argu- 
ment. In  the  informal  argument,  all  the  arts  of  persuasion 
may  and  should  be  used,  and  in  this,  free  play  should  be  given 
to  individual  experience  and  to  temperament.  Beyond  this, 
the  only  thing  to  be  said  is  that  as  the  purpose  of  the  prop- 
aganda paper  is  to  win  people  to  the  writer's  way  of  thinking 
on  its  subject,  obviously  the  paper  must  succeed  in  being 
interesting  to  the  people  for  whom  it  is  intended  or  it  fails 
of  its  purpose.  Here,  as  in  all  forms  of  writing  in  which  the 
purpose  of  reaching  a  particular  audience  rather  than  the 
need  of  self-expression  is  the  motive,  the  only  really  prac- 
tical rule  that  can  be  given  is  to  study  successful  models  as 
they  appear  in  print  in  the  magazines,  and  to  imitate  these 
as  far  as  is  consistent  with  your  subject,  your  ideals,  and 
your  temperament.  Practice  of  this  sort  gets  much  more 
rapid  results  than  mere  application  of  theory. 

ASSIGNMENT 

1.  Read  and  discuss  the  nature  and  value  of  the  arguments  of 
Brutus  and  of  Antony  in  Julius  Caesar,  act  III,  scene  2. 

2.  Write  about  500  words  on  one  of  the  following  propositions: 

(1)  For  the  good  of  the  State,  sickness  should  be  made  a  legal 
offense. 

(2)  Criminals  should  be  regarded  as  diseased,  and  so  treated. 

(3)  Machinery  retards  the  development  of  the  human  race. 

If  you  cannot  argue  in  favor  of  any  of  these,  read  the  chapters  in 
Samuel  Butler's  Erehwon  that  touch  upon  these  subjects  and  write 
an  informal  refutation  of  about  the  same  length  as  Butler's  ar- 
guments. 

3.  Write  a  500-word  argument  on  any  one  of  the  following  sub- 
jects on  which  you  feel  any  conviction.    You  can  supplement  your 
own  knowledge  by  reference  to  articles  listed  in  The  Reader's  Guide: 

(1)  The  products  of  prison  labor  should  not  be  sold. 

(2)  The  United  States  should  admit  Oriental  immigrants  on  the 
same  terms  as  European. 


THE  SHORT  PAPER  367 

(3)  There  should  be  national  legislation  concerning  marriage 
and  divorce. 

(4)  The  Swiss  system  of  universal  military  training  should  be 
adopted  in  the  United  States. 

4.  In  the  following  quotation  lies  the  germ  of  a  paper.    Either 
expand  the  ideas  in  it  to  about  500  words;  or  give  the  same  amount 
of  space  to  a  statement  of  opposing  views.    Whichever  you  do,  be 
careful  to  develop  every  point  that  is  suggested,  and  give  as  many 
concrete  illustrations  as  you  can  in  support  of  your  contention.    Be 
as  specific  as  possible: 

"The  Prince  straightway  declared  that  self-government  on  any 
but  a  small  scale,  and  in  any  but  a  young  and  simple  society, 
was  a  ludicrous  and  hideous  fallacy,  and  maintained  that  of  all  the 
perversions  which  the  workings  of  the  human  mind  as  applied  to 
politics  had  developed,  none  was  more  astoundingly  illogical  than 
that  which  resulted  in  the  conclusion  that  an  aggregation  of  half  a 
million  human  beings,  crowding  into  the  space  of  a  few  square 
miles  the  extremes  of  wealth  and  poverty,  and  all  the  possibilities 
of  ambition  and  villainy  and  ignorance  and  vice  and  misery  and 
lawlessness  and  seething  discontent,  could  rule  itself." 

— Henry  Putter. 

5.  The  following  criticisms  have  been  made  upon  our  country  by 
friendly  visitors.     Choose  one  that  you  consider  just,  and  write  a 
500- word  paper,  suggesting  what  might  be  done  about  it: 

(1)  "Business  governs  America;  and  business  does  not  include 
labour.  .  .  .     America  is  the  paradise  of  plutocracy;  for  the  rich 
there  enjoy  not  only  a  real  power  but  a  social  prestige  such  as  can 
hardly  have  been  accorded  to  them  even  in  the  worst  days  of  the 
Roman  Empire." — G.  Lowes  Dickinson. 

(2)  "And  the  London  Savoy  Hotel  still  flaunts  its  memory  of  one 
splendid  American  night.    The  court-yard  was  flooded  with  water 
tinted  an  artistic  blue — to  the  great  discomfort  of  the  practically 
inevitable  gold-fish — and  on  this  floated  a  dream  of  a  gondola.    And 
in  the  gondola  the  table  was  spread  and  served  by  the  Savoy  staff, 
mysteriously  disguised  in  appropriate  fancy  costume.    The  whole 
thing — there's    only    two    words   for   it — was    'perfectly    lovely.' 
'The  illusion' — whatever   that  was — we  are   assured,  was   com- 
plete.   It  wasn't  a  nursery  treat,  you  know.    The  guests,  I  am  told, 
were  important  grown-up  people." — H.  G.  Wells. 

(3)  "Individualism,  then,  is  stronger  and  deeper  rooted  in  Am- 
erica than  elsewhere.    And,  it  must  be  added,  socialism  is  weaker." 

G.  Lowes  Dickinson. 


368  THE  WRITING  OF  ENGLISH 

(4)  "I  came  away  from  Washington  with  my  preconception 
enormously  reinforced  that  the  supreme  need  of  America,  the  pre- 
liminary thing  to  any  social  or  economic  reconstruction  is  political 
reform.    It  seems  to  me  to  lie  upon  the  surface  that  America  has 
to  be  democratized."— H.  G.  Wetts. 

(5)  "There  is  no  culture  in  America.     There  is   instruction; 
there  is  research;  there  is  technical  and  professional  training;  there 
is  specialization  in  science  and  industry;  there  is  every  possible 
application  of  life  to  purposes  and  ends;  but  there  is  no  life  for  its 
own  sake." — G.  Lowes  Dickinson. 

(6)  "Now  what  is  called  corruption  in  America  is  a  thing  not 
confined  to  politics;  it  is  a  defect  of  moral  method  found  in  every 
department  of  American  life." — H.  G.  Wells. 

6.  Using  the  same  quotations,  choose  one  that  you  consider  un- 
just and  write  a  500-word  paper  refuting  it. 

7.  The  two  sets  of  papers  called  for  in  5  and  6  should  be  discussed 
in  class,  and  conclusions  reached  in  regard  to  the  criticisms  and 
the  refutations. 


CHAPTER  XX 
CRITICISM 

CRITICISM  as  commonly  practised  is  like  a  boomerang 
thrown  by  a  novice:  it  does  not  hit  the  subject  at  which  it  is 
hurled;  but  it  rebounds  and  hits  the  critic.  In  giving  your 
opinions  about  the  writing  of  Thomas  Hardy  or  Bernard 
Shaw,  you  are  telling  the  shrewd  observer  whether  you  are 
really  familiar  with  the  work,  whether  you  have  any  under- 
standing of  what  the  author  is  trying  to  do,  whether  you  are 
thinking  of  this  particular  work  in  relation  to  other  works 
by  the  same  artist,  and  to  all  other  art  of  its  kind,  and  how 
much  experience  you  have  had  of  the  aspect  of  truth  of  which 
you  are  criticizing  the  representation;  and  also  you  will 
suggest  to  no  small  degree  your  mental  caliber  and  general 
attitude  toward  life.  Few  people  have  any  idea  how  they 
are  "giving  themselves  away  "  in  the  simple  act  of  expressing 
their  opinion  of  a  poem,  a  novel,  or  a  picture. 

To  begin  with,  there  are  two  ways  of  criticizing  which 
profit  no  one. 

You  may  disarm  judgment  at  once  by  saying,  "I  know 
nothing  about  art;  but  I  know  what  I  like."  This  is  emi- 
nently sensible,  if  you  do  not  immediately  proceed  on  the 
hypothesis  that  what  follows  this  introduction  is  criticism. 
The  point  is  that  like  or  dislike  has  nothing  whatever  to  do 
with  criticism.  You  may  read  East  Lynne  with  ravenous 
enjoyment;  and  then  sit  down  and  show  that  as  a  Work  of 
art  it  is  beneath  contempt. 

Or,  again,  you  may  be  familiar  with  the  principles  and  the 
technical  language  of  criticism,  and  may  apply  them  to  a 
work  of  art  without  bringing  it  into  the  slightest  vital  re- 
369 


370  THE  WRITING  OF  ENGLISH 

lationship  with  yourself.  For  instance,  you  may  show  that 
Lycidas  is  one  of  the  finest  lyrics  in  English;  you  may  point 
out  the  circumstances  of  its  composition,  the  pastoral  el- 
ements, the  lofty  ideas,  the  beautiful  imagery,  the  melody 
and  color  of  the  verse;  and  all  the  while  you  may  feel  that 
the  poem  is  a  bore,  and  that  you  will  never  read  it  again. 
This  is  merely  the  semblance  or  the  shell  of  criticism. 

What,  then,  is  criticism?  The  term  comes  from  a  word  that 
means  to  separate.  The  original  critic  was  a  judge — one  who 
separates  right  from  wrong,  the  innocent  from  the  guilty; 
one  who  balances  crime  against  punishment.  The  idea  of 
separating — of  balancing  on  this  side  and  on  that — is  at  the 
root  of  literary  criticism.  The  first  separation — as  in  the 
case  of  the  judge — is  that  of  the  thing  judged  from  the  per- 
sonality of  the  judge.  Whether  you  like  or  dislike  the  per- 
son on  trial — or  the  type  of  person  that  he  is — is  entirely  un- 
important; it  is  your  business  as  judge  to  base  your  conclu- 
sion upon  all  the  relevant  facts,  and  upon  nothing  else. 
But  is  this  all?  It  may  leave  you  in  the  unhappy  position 
of  him  who  knows  that  Lycidas  is  a  classic  and  feels  that  it  is 
a  bore. 

The  separation  must  go  further:  you  must  as  critic  not 
only  lay  aside  for  the  time  your  own  personality,  but  you 
must  try  to  jump  into  that  of  the  author  whose  work  you 
are  judging.  This  is  more  than  any  judge  is  expected  to  do. 

The  good  critic,  then,  first  and  last,  tries  to  see  a  work  of 
art  from  the  point  of  view  of  the  creator.  But  he  has  to 
think  backward.  The  creator  begins  with  certain  ideas  which 
he  expresses  in  words,  or  paint,  or  sounds;  the  critic  begins 
with  the  completed  work  and  asks  himself:  What  was  the 
original  conception?  What  was  the  creator  trying  to  do? 
How  far  has  he  done  it?  He  will  not  begin  by  finding  fault 
with  Othello  because  it  is  a  tragedy  rather  than  a  comedy,  or 
because  it  is  in  blank  verse  rather  than  in  rhyme,  or  because 
it  is  pessimistic  rather  than  optimistic  in  its  philosophy;  he 


CRITICISM  371 

will  ask  himself:  What  was  Shakespeare  trying  to  do,  and 
how  far  has  he  succeeded  in  doing  it?  Had  he  the  purpose  of 
showing  the  havoc  caused  by  jealousy — lago's  jealousy  of 
Othello,  Othello's  jealousy  of  Desdemona?  Had  Milton  in 
Lycidas,  the  purpose  of  turning  a  real  grief,  but  pensive 
rather  than  poignant,  into  the  beautiful  forms  of  pastoral 
poetry?  So  far  the  critic  is  busy  separating  from  the  finished 
product  the  theme  that  gave  it  birth. 

This  done,  he  turns  to  problems  of  technique — workman- 
ship. And  here  at  once  he  has  to  deal  with  standards:  the 
author's  own  standard  in  earlier  work;  and  the  general  stand- 
ards of  excellence  in  every  form  of  technique  used.  The 
critic  again  separates  and  weighs.  Is  this  work  better  than 
the  preceding  work  by  the  same  writer?  Does  it  show 
growth  ?  Does  it  gain  here  and  lose  there?  In  general,  how 
does  it  measure  up?  On  the  other  hand,  how  far  short  is  it 
still  of  the  best  that  has  been  done  of  its  kind?  In  what 
respects  is  it  most  nearly  perfect?  Where  are  its  greatest 
weaknesses? 

From  these  questions  it  is  clear  that  the  critic  should  be 
a  man  of  wide  knowledge;  he  should  be  familiar  with  all  the 
earlier  work  of  the  author  whose  present  book  he  is  judging; 
he  should  be  familiar  with  all  the  best  that  has  been  done  in 
the  forms  of  technique;  and  he  should  know  the  entire  range 
of  technique  itself.  No  such  critic  has  ever  existed;  but  the 
ideal  should  be  kept  in  mind  in  writing  criticism. 

It  follows  that  you  cannot  criticize  an  author  properly 
unless  you  are  familiar  with  the  most  that  he  has  written, 
and  also  with  the  most  that  has  been  written  by  other  au- 
thors in  that  type  of  literature.  Therefore  you  should  limit 
your  criticisms  strictly  according  to  the  limits  of  your  knowl- 
edge; and  you  should  make  your  reader  clearly  understand 
exactly  what  you  are  criticizing  and  with  what  right.  At 
the  same  time  you  should  endeavor  to  establish  every  ex- 
pressed opinion  by  reference  to  the  source  of  it  in  the  text 


372  THE  WRITING  OF  ENGLISH 

criticized,  or  you  will  find  yourself  slipping  into  the  fatal 
"I  like"  type  of  statement,  or  the  equally  fatal  "This  is 
good;"  of  which  the  first  is  not  criticism  at  all,  while  the 
second,  without  support,  is  meaningless. 

Again,  all  criticisms  must  be  organized  according  to  the 
principles  of  technique  involved.  If  the  plot  of  a  novel  is 
interesting,  the  critic  must  analyze  it  in  terms  of  the  prin- 
ciples that  make  good  plot;  if  the  characters  are  interesting, 
in  terms  of  the  principles  that  make  good  characterization; 
if  the  setting  appeals,  in  terms  of  setting;  if  the  dialogue, 
in  terms  of  dialogue;  if  the  philosophy,  in  terms  of  philosophy. 
If  a  poem  is  criticized,  it  must  be  judged  by  the  technique  of 
its  verse  as  well  as  by  its  intellectual  and  emotional  content, 
its  imagery,  and  so  on.  The  more  closely  you  analyze  a  piece 
of  writing  according  to  the  principles  of  technique  that  it 
involves,  the  nearer  will  you  come  to  a  judgment  that  will 
not  only  put  you  into  the  right  relationship  with  the  work 
judged,  but  will  show  you  clearly  whether  it  can  contribute 
toward  your  own  mental  growth. 

And  at  every  step  you  must  refer  your  impression  back  to 
its  source,  or  the  whole  structure  of  your  judgment  may  be 
out  of  harmony  with  the  facts.  Often  your  impression  will 
be  debatable;  sometimes  it  will  be  wrong.  One  passage  will 
contradict  another;  critics  will  disagree;  exposition  will  be- 
come argument.  To  judge  accurately  and  wisely,  you  must 
form  the  habit  of  holding  yourself  to  account  for  every  opin- 
ion that  you  express;  and  if  you  do  not  actually  quote  in  sup- 
port of  your  view,  you  should  be  able  at  every  point  to  quote, 
if  your  opinion  is  challenged. 

To  get  rid  of  your  personal  bias,  to  get  the  author's  point 
of  view  and  purpose,  to  judge  his  work  by  his  own  standard 
of  attainment,  and  by  the  absolute  standards  of  the  tech- 
nique that  it  involves,  basing  these  judgments  upon  the  evi- 
dence of  the  work  itself — all  these  processes  enter  into  good 
criticism.  And  yet,  it  is  conceivable  that  after  you  have  done 


CRITICISM  373 

all  this  you  may  still  be  in  an  attitude  of  mind  symbolized 
by  the  sentence:  "I  know  that  Lycidas  is  a  great  poem,  but  it 
bores  me."  What  can  be  done  about  this?  Let  us  consider 
the  difficulty  from  another  angle. 

The  appeal  of  a  book  to  a  mind  is  one  of  the  most  variable 
things  in  the  world.  Some  books  we  grow  out  of  in  child- 
hood and  never  wish  to  see  again;  some  books  very  few  of  us 
ever  grow  up  to  at  all.  There  are  books  which  some  of  us 
enjoy  reading  all  our  lives;  others  of  us  can  never  enjoy  these 
books  at  all — or  at  least  we  have  not  found  out  that  we  can. 
What  are  we  to  do  with  this  personal  relationship — or  lack 
of  it — in  connection  with  criticism?  If  a  bias  for  or  against 
a  work  is  not  criticism,  and  if  perfect  detachment  from  it  is 
merely  the  form  of  criticism  without  the  spirit,  what  other 
attitude  is  possible?  The  attitude  of  holding  judgment  in 
solution  as  it  were — of  saying  to  one's  self:  "To-day  Lycidas 
leaves  me  cold;  to-morrow  I  may  have  some  experience  that 
will  open  up  new  ranges  of  life,  and  the  beauty  of  the  poem 
may  shine  upon  me."  A  perpetual  readiness — eagerness — to 
find  the  beautiful  in  art,  and  an  increasing  keenness,  born  of 
wider  experience  of  life  and  of  books,  to  distinguish  between 
the  permanently  beautiful  and  that  which  has  only  a  tran- 
sient glamor  for  the  developing  mind  mark  the  attitude  of 
the  true  critic.  He  distinguishes  thus:  "Pride  and  Prejudice 
I  can  read  now  with  as  much  delight  as  when  I  first  came  to 
it  twenty  years  ago;  but  A  Tale  of  Two  Cities  has  lost  its 
spell — still,  I  appreciate  its  value  as  a  factor  in  my  mental 
development.  Don  Quixote  I  have  never  been  able  to  read, 
but  I  hope  to  grow  into  it  some  day;  I  can  see  in  it  elements 
of  beauty,  but  my  experience  as  yet  is  not  such  that  I  can 
feel  them — I  must  keep  it  in  mind  and  wait.  Scottish  Chiefs 
might  have  cast  its  spell  over  me  many  years  ago,  had  it  come 
my  way;  but  I  missed  it  then  and  now  I  can  see  that  I  have 
outgrown  it." 

In  some  such  way  as  this  his  mind  moves,  in  a  continual 


374  THE  WRITING  OF  ENGLISH 

effort  to  establish  true  relationships  among  works  of  art,  with 
reference  to  one  another  and  to  himself.  This  is  a  totally 
different  thing  from  liking  or  disliking  without  knowing  why; 
and  from  giving  reasons  for  a  judgment  which  has  not  become 
assimilated  and  realized. 

From  this  point  of  view  it  would  seem  that  criticism  should 
be  written  only  after  this  vital  relationship  between  critic 
and  subject  has  been  once  established.  One  who  has  not  yet 
grown  up  to  Don  Quixote  can  obviously  have  nothing  to  say 
about  it;  while  one  who  has  felt  the  glamor  of  Dickens  or 
of  Jane  Porter  can  still  consider  these  authors  in  the  light  of 
the  power  that  they  once  had  upon  him,  and  realize  and  ex- 
pound the  sources  of  their  attraction  for  others. 

For  the  inexperienced  critic  it  is  best  to  confine  practice 
in  writing  criticism  in  two  ways:  To  subjects  with  which  at 
the  time  of  writing  he  stands  in  vital  relationship;  and  to 
the  examination  of  very  small  pieces  of  work,  in  order  that 
he  may  learn  invariably  to  associate  an  impression  with  the 
passage  on  which  it  is  based. 

Incomparably  the  best  means  of  acquiring  the  critical  atti- 
tude is  free  discussion  of  books  in  which  you  are  now  inter- 
ested. But  discussion  does  not  mean  mere  exchange  of  en- 
thusiasms; it  means  inquiry  into  the  sources  of  enthusiasm, 
scrutiny  into  differences  of  opinion,  and  re-reading  for  evidence 
in  support  of  this  opinion  or  that.  It  is  better  for  six  people 
than  for  two  to  take  part  in  such  a  discussion;  the  greater 
the  divergences  of  opinion,  the  more  upturning  of  evidence 
will  there  be,  and  the  greater  the  probability  of  reaching  a 
just  balance  of  merits  and  defects. 

In  writing  criticism,  the  all  important  thing  at  first  is  to 
put  yourself  into  direct  relationship  with  the  text.  What  is 
actually  there?  Very  often  failure  to  appreciate  beauty  is 
failure  to  see  it;  and,  unnecessary  as  it  may  seem  to  say  so, 
failure  to  see  it  is  commonly  due  to  not  looking  attentively 
at  the  thing  in  which  it  is  embodied.  Attentive  and  ex- 


CRITICISM  375 

pectant  scrutiny,  then,  of  a  work  of  art  is  the  first  step  in 
learning  to  appreciate  a  beauty  which  does  not  immediately 
manifest  itself  to  your  mind.  To  secure  this,  it  is  best  to 
limit  yourself  to  a  very  small  thing,  and  to  hold  yourself 
rigidly  to  finding  the  exact  foundation  in  the  text  itself  for 
every  impression  that  it  makes  upon  your  mind. 

ASSIGNMENT 

1.  Bring  to  class  as  a  basis  for  oral  discussion  notes  on  the  book 
about  which  you  are  now  most  enthusiastic.    Avoid  all  such  terms 
as  "I  like,"  "good,"  etc.,  and  collect  evidence  which  should  make 
other  people  incline  to  read  the  book. 

2.  Read   the  following   stanza  slowly,   to   decide  whether   the 
thought  was  worth  expression: 

"It  is  not  growing  like  a  tree 

In  bulk  doth  make  men  better  be; 
Or  standing  long  an  oak,  three  hundred  year, 
To  fall  a  log  at  last,  dry,  bald,  and  sear: 
A  lily  of  a  day 
Is  fairer  far,  in  May; 
Although  it  fall  and  die  that  night, 
It  was  the  plant  and  flower  of  light. 
In  small  proportions  we  just  beauties  see; 
And  in  short  measures  life  may  perfect  be." 

— Ben  Jonson. 

To  what  do  you  attribute  the  irregular  form  of  the  stanza?  Do  you 
find  upon  examination  that  it  contains  any  unnecessary  words  or 
phrases  used  to  fill  out  the  meter?  Then  can  you  say  that  the  verse 
has  been  exactly  formed  to  meet  the  pattern  of  the  thought?  Are 
thought  and  verse  so  blended  that  it  is  difficult  to  imagine  this 
thought  expressed  in  any  other  verse  form?  Are  the  two  figures 
used  for  ornament  or  were  they  inherent  in  the  thought  as  it  de- 
veloped? On  what  do  you  base  your  opinion?  If  you  omit  the 
figures,  how  much  of  the  poem  remains? 

Write  a  criticism  of  the  stanza  in  less  than  50  words.     Do  not 
repeat  what  it  contains;  try  to  explain  why  it  is  beautiful. 

3.  Read  the  following  stanza,  aloud  if  possible,  and  rapidly; 
otherwise  you  lose  the  swing  of  the  rhythm: 


376  THE  WRITING  OF  ENGLISH 

"Have  you  seen  but  a  bright  lily  grow, 
Before  rude  hands  have  touched  it? 
Have  you  marked  but  the  fall  of  the  snow, 

Before  the  soil  hath  smutched  it? 
Have  you  felt  the  wool  of  the  beaver? 

Or  swan's  down  ever? 
Or  have  smelt  o'  the  bud  of  the  briar? 

Or  the  nard  in  the  fire? 
Or  have  tasted  the  bag  of  the  bee? 
Oh  so  white!     Oh  so  soft!     Oh  so  sweet  is  she!" 

— Ben  Jonson. 

Is  the  thought  here  of  any  value?  What  is  of  value?  Usually 
poetry  appeals  to  the  senses  of  sight  and  sound;  what  senses  are 
appealed  to  here?  How  is  this  appeal  made?  Could  it  have  been 
done  in  any  other  way?  Why  not?  Why  is  the  stanza  made  up  of 
long  and  short  lines,  and  why  is  the  last  line  broken  into  three 
ejaculatory  phrases?  How  would  you  contrast  the  reasons  for  the 
irregularity  of  meter  here  and  in  the  stanza  quoted  above?  Phrase 
exactly  the  relation  between  the  breaking  up  of  these  lines  and  the 
feeling  that  they  express. 

Write  a  criticism  of  the  stanza  in  less  than  50  words. 

4.  Read  the  following  stanzas  slowly,  aloud  if  possible,  without 
pausing  more  than  a  moment  between  them: 

"St.  Agnes'  Eve— Ah,  bitter  chill  it  was! 
The  owl,  for  all  his  feathers,  was  a-cold; 
The  hare  limp'd  trembling  through  the  frozen  grass, 
And  silent  was  the  flock  in  woolly  fold: 
Numb  were  the  Beadsman's  fingers,  while  he  told 
His  rosary,  and  while  his  frosted  breath, 
Like  pious  incense  from  a  censer  old, 
Seem'd  taking  flight  for  heaven,  without  a  death, 
Past  the  sweet  Virgin's  picture,  while  his  prayer  he  saith." 

"And  still  she  slept  an  azure-lidded  sleep, 
In  blanched  linen,  smooth  and  lavender'd, 
While  he  from  forth  the  closet  brought  a  heap 
Of  candied  apple,  quince,  and  plum,  and  gourd; 
With  jellies  soother  than  the  creamy  curd, 
And  lucent  syrups,  tinct  with  cinnamon; 
Manna  and  dates,  in  argosy  transferr'd 
From  Fez;  and  spiced  dainties,  every  one, 
From  silken  Samarcand  to  cedar'd  Lebanon." — John  Keats. 


CRITICISM  377 

Can  you  sum  up  your  impression  of  the  first  stanza  in  a  word?  of 
the  second?  Quote  the  expressions  in  each  upon  which  your  im- 
pressions are  based,  and  see  whether  you  have  included  most  of 
each  stanza.  If  not,  change  your  impression  until  you  get  one  which 
is  actually  borne  out  by  most  of  the  text.  Has  the  poet  any  idea 
here  beyond  conveying  these  two  impressions?  Does  he  convey 
them  merely  by  his  choice  of  words?  How  else?  Name  the  words 
in  the  first  stanza  which  by  their  sound  alone  suggest  the  impres- 
sion? What  is  the  effect  of  the  a  in  a-cold?  In  the  second  stanza 
what  sound-combinations  are  used  to  express  sleep?  what  sounds 
actually  make  the  mouth  form  itself  as  it  would  in  tasting  the 
things  mentioned?  what  words  are  used  to  make  all  the  dainties 
seem  very  rare  and  precious,  rich  in  unknown  qualities?  On  the 
basis  of  these  two  stanzas  write  a  criticism  in  less  than  100  words 
of  Keats's  sensitiveness  to  sense  impressions,  basing  every  statement 
immediately  upon  the  text. 

5.  Beauty  may  depend  upon  imagery,  sound,  rhythm,  and  sug- 
gestion in  varying  degrees;  it  may  also  depend  upon  the  evoking 
of  old  emotional  associations.  If  you  learned  to  love  daffodils 
from  the  flowers  themselves,  and  from  Mother  Goose's  "Daffy- 
downdilly  has  come  up  to  town,"  you  have  experience  to  draw  upon 
which  peculiarly  fits  you  to  appreciate  Wordsworth's  poem  about 
them.  If  you  have  merely  seen  them  in  florists'  windows,  you 
will  be  more  prepared  than  if  you  have  not  seen  them  at  all,  to 
imagine  the  beauty  that  is  faintly  represented  by  the  photograph 
of  these  flowers  growing  wild  against  their  background  of  mountain 
and  lake.  Try  to  add  color  and  atmosphere  to  the  picture,  then 
read  the  poem: 

"I  wandered  lonely  as  a  cloud 
That  floats  on  high  o'er  vales  and  hills, 
When  all  at  once  I  saw  a  crowd, 
A  host,  of  golden  daffodils; 
Beside  the  lake,  beneath  the  trees, 
Fluttering  and  dancing  in  the  breeze. 

Continuous  as  the  stars  that  shine 
And  twinkle  on  the  milky  way, 
They  stretched  in  never-ending  line 
Along  the  margin  of  a  bay; 
Ten  thousand  saw  I  at  a  glance, 
Tossing  their  heads  in  sprightly  dance. 

The  waves  beside  them  danced;  but  they 
Out-did  the  sparkling  waves  in  glee: 


378  THE  WRITING  OF  ENGLISH 

A  poet  could  not  but  be  gay 

In  such  a  jocund  company : 

I  gazed — and  gazed — but  little  thought 

What  wealth  the  show  to  me  had  brought: 

For  oft,  when  on  my  couch  I  lie 
In  vacant  or  in  pensive  mood, 
They  flash  upon  that  inward  eye 
Which  is  the  bliss  of  solitude; 
And  then  my  heart  with  pleasure  fills, 
And  dances  with  the  daffodils." 

Is  the  emphasis  on  the  flowers  or  on  the  impression  that  they  made 
on  the  poet?  Which  stanza  contains  the  most  important  thought? 
Do  all  the  others  prepare  for  and  lead  up  to  this?  Does  the  poem 
read  like  a  record  of  real  experience?  How  so?  Is  the  thought 
expressed  with  the  complete  simplicity  of  unadorned  prose?  Why 
is  it — aside  from  the  verse  form — poetry?  Is  the  form  itself  im- 
portant here?  the  imagery?  the  appeal  to  sense?  the  figures?  the 
sound?  What  is  important? 

Write  a  criticism  of  less  than  100  words,  trying  to  explain  the 
poetry  of  the  lines? 

6.  Read  Robert  Herrick's  lines  on  the  same  subject,  and  try  to 
sum  up  in  a  sentence  the  fundamental  difference  between  the  poems: 

"Fair  daffodils,  we  weep  to  sec 

You  haste  away  so  soon; 
As  yet  the  early  rising  sun 
Has  not  attain'd  his  noon. 

Stay,  stay, 

Until  the  hasting  day  has  run 
But  to  the  even-song; 
And  having  prayed  together,  we 
Will  go  with  you  along. 

We  have  short  time  to  stay,  as  you? 

We  have  as  short  a  spring; 
As  quick  a  growth  to  meet  decay, 

As  you,  or  anything. 
We  die 

As  your  hours  do,  and  dry 
Away, 

Like  to  the  summer's  rain; 
Or  as  the  pearls  of  morning's  dew, 

Ne'er  to  be  found  again." 


CRITICISM  379 

Whether  you  prefer  this  poem  or  the  other  may  be  a  question  of 
temperament  or  of  mood;  but  you  should  be  able  to  distinguish  the 
totally  different  point  of  view  and  method  of  each  poet.  Which 
lays  most  stress  on  the  form  itself?  Which  regards  every  sound  that 
he  inserts,  every  turn  of  rhythm?  Which  poem  could  be  expressed 
in  a  different  stanza  with  least  loss  of  effect?  Which,  then,  depends 
more  upon  its  form,  and  which  upon  its  thought  for  conveying  a 
sense  of  beauty?  Which  is  built  upon  a  commonplace  thought 
that  has  been  expressed  countless  times  before?  Can  you  remember 
or  find  other  poems  in  which  a  similar  view  of  life  is  expressed? 
Which  of  the  two  poems  expresses  a  freshly  realized  aspect  of 
Nature? 

In  100-200  words  contrast  the  poems  of  Wordsworth  and  of 
Herrick  on  daffodils.  Give  evidence  for  every  statement  that  you 
make. 

7.  Analyze  in  100-200  words  the  charm  of  the  following  piece  of 
prose: 

"And  for  you  that  have  heard  many  grave,  serious  men  pity 
Anglers;  let  me  tell  you,  Sir,  there  be  many  men  that  are  by  others 
taken  to  be  serious  and  grave  men,  whom  we  contemn  and  pity. 
Men  that  are  taken  to  be  grave,  because  nature  hath  made  them  of  a 
sour  complexion;  money-getting  men,  men  that  spend  all  their 
time,  first  in  getting,  and  next,  in  anxious  care  to  keep  it;  men  that 
are  condemned  to  be  rich,  and  then  always  busy  or  discontented: 
for  these  poor  rich  men,  we  Anglers  pity  them  perfectly,  and  stand 
in  no  need  to  borrow  their  thoughts  to  think  ourselves  happy.  No, 
no,  Sir,  we  enjoy  a  con  tented  ness  above  the  reach  of  such  dis- 
positions, and  as  the  learned  and  ingenious  Montaigne  says,  like 
himself,  freely,  'When  my  Cat  and  I  entertain  each  other  with 
mutual  apish  tricks,  as  playing  with  a  garter,  who  knows  but  that 
I  make  my  Cat  more  sport  than  she  makes  me?  Shall  I  conclude 
her  to  be  simple,  that  has  her  time  to  begin  or  refuse,  to  play  as 
freely  as  I  myself  have?  Nay,  who  knows  but  that  it  is  a  defect 
of  my  not  understanding  her  language,  for  doubtless  Cats  reason 
and  talk  with  one  another,  that  we  agree  no  better:  and  who  knows 
but  that  she  pities  me  for  being  no  wiser  than  to  play  with  her,  and 
laughs  and  censures  my  folly,  for  making  sport  for  her,  when  we  two 
play  together?'" 

8.  Izaak  Walton,  the  author  of  the  preceding  quotation,  died 
in  1683;  Montaigne,  whom  he  quotes,  in  1592.    Sum  up  the  char- 
acter of  each  of  these  men  as  it  appears  from  this  passage  alone. 
Afterward,  look  up  their  biographies  and  discuss  the  papers  in  class 
to  see  how  nearly  right  you  were. 


380  THE  WRITING  OF  ENGLISH 

9.  You  are  aware  that  Geoffrey  Chaucer  is  considered  one  of  the 
greatest  English  writers;  you  may  or  may  not  like  his  work  yourself. 
In  criticizing  the  following  lines  from  the  Prologue  to  the  Canterbury 
Tales,  try  to  forget  anything  that  you  may  know  about  Chaucer, 
and  consider  the  verses  as  if  they  were  the  only  surviving  fragment 
of  work  by  an  unknown  poet  of  the  14th  century: 

"With  him  there  was  his  son,  a  young  squire, 
A  lover  and  a  lusty  bachelor, 
With  locks  as  curled  as  if  they'd  been  in  press. 
Of  twenty  years  of  age  he  was,  I  guess. 
Of  his  stature  he  was  of  medium  length, 
And  wondrously  expert  and  great  of  strength; 
And  he  had  been  in  raids  of  cavalry, 
In  Flanders,  in  Artois,  and  Picardy, 
And  borne  him  well,  as  in  so  little  space, 
In  hope  of  standing  in  his  lady's  grace. 
Embroidered  was  he  as  it  were  a  mead 
AH  full  of  freshest  flowers,  white  and  red; 
Singing  he  was  or  whistling  all  the  day; 
He  was  as  fresh  as  is  the  month  of  May. 
Short  was  his  gown,  with  sleeves  full  long  and  wide; 
Well  could  he  sit  a  horse,  and  finely  ride; 
And  songs  he  could  compose  and  well  indite, 
Joust  and  eke  dance  and  well  portray  and  write. 
For  love  no  sleep  at  night  might  him  avail; 
He  slept  no  more  than  doth  the  nightingale. 
Courteous  he  was,  modest  and  serviceable, 
And  carved  before  his  father  at  the  table." 

Is  this  a  living  portrait  of  a  young  man?  How  do  you  know?  What 
universal  traits  of  character  of  a  man  of  twenty  does  it  show? 
Which  trait  is  fundamental?  which  details  illustrate  it?  what  other 
qualities  are  associated  with  this?  how  are  they  illustrated?  Is 
there  any  suggestion  of  qualities  other  than  attractive?  With  allow- 
ance for  differences  in  fashions  of  dress  and  accomplishments,  would 
this  stand  for  a  portrait  of  a  young  soldier  in  any  age?  Then  what 
is  the  great  merit  of  the  lines?  Does  the  author  show  understanding 
of  human  nature?  sympathy  with  its  ideals  and  its  foibles? 

Write  100-200  words  of  criticism  on  the  passage,  considered 
without  reference  to  Chaucer,  and  adding  any  point  that  you  wish 
to  those  brought  out  by  the  questions. 


CHAPTER  XXI 
RESEARCH  WORK 

YOUR  initiation  into  research  work  may  begin  in  the  form 
of  a  term  paper  of  several  thousand  words.  Whether  it 
does  or  not,  as  a  college  student  you  cannot  too  soon  learn 
the  meaning  of  the  research  attitude.  It  means  not  merely 
the  accumulation  of  facts  for  a  paper,  but  a  general  and  per- 
manent desire  to  get  the  truth  in  regard  to  whatever  aspect 
of  life  is  under  consideration.  In  this  sense  it  is  by  no  means 
confined  to  scholars,  but  belongs  quite  as  much  to  the  prov- 
ince of  practical  life. 

The  training  that  leads  to  the  research  attitude  comes  from 
the  independent  investigation  of  all  the  facts  in  a  situation 
with  the  single  desire  of  inferring  correctly  the  truth  behind 
them.  Research  is  thus  argument. 

In  every  piece  of  research  there  are  four  principal  stages : 

1.  Getting  a  subject  about  which  the  truth  is  imperfectly 
known; 

2.  Making  a  complete  bibliography  of  all  the  information 
available; 

3.  Reading  and  making  notes  on  cards,  and  filing  these; 

4.  Combining  the  materials  into  an  argument  that  shall 
lead  to  a  conviction  of  the  truth  of  the  results  reached. 

1.  In  choosing  a  subject  for  a  paper  limited  in  length,  you 
should  take  special  care  to  narrow  it  as  much  as  possible. 
You  may  indeed  begin  with  a  general  subject  in  which  you 
are  interested;  but  you  must  reduce  it  to  a  very  limited 
phase  if  you  hope  to  get  any  results.  Suppose,  for  example, 
you  have  always  been  interested  in  the  Vikings.  A  study  of 
the  Vikings  would  run  into  volumes;  a  study  of  the  Vikings 
381 


382  THE  WRITING  OF  ENGLISH 

in  America  is  too  much  for  a  single  volume;  a  study  of  a 
single  expedition  is  enough  for  a  paper.  Which  expedition 
shall  you  study?  Take  one  about  which  there  is  difference 
of  opinion:  for  example,  scholars  have  been  quarreling  for 
some  time  about  the  authenticity  of  an  inscription-bearing 
stone  found  at  Kensington,  Minnesota,  and  the  dispute  is  not 
settled.  While  you  could  scarcely  expect  to  settle  it,  the 
material  for  discussion  is  manageable  in  amount,  and  your 
investigation  will  bring  you  to  grips  with  a  real  problem. 
Note  that  your  subject  has  been  narrowed  from  the  Vikings 
to  the  Kensington  Rune  Stone.  Similarly,  you  may  take 
one  small  phase  of  some  subject  in  science,  in  economics, 
in  social  science,  in  any  field  of  knowledge,  and  grapple 
with  it  in  order  to  learn  method  in  the  attack  and  conquest 
of  truth. 

2.  Your  bibliography  should  be  complete,  accurate,  and 
in  proper  form.    To  make  it  complete,  you  must  begin  with 
the  general  works  of  reference,  and  follow  up  every  authority 
there  mentioned  until  you  are  sure  that  it  is  or  is  not  useful 
for  your  purpose.    As  you  work  with  these  authorities,  you 
must  note  at  the  moment  of  observation  further  authorities 
that  may  be  worth  looking  into;  and  continue  the  same  proc- 
ess with  these  until  you  cannot  see  a  single  trail  that  you  have 
left    unexplored.      Each    reference    should    be    accurately 
copied — and  verified  at  the  moment — and  in  proper  form 
(see  Appendix  II).     Remember  that  your  bibliography  will 
not  be  complete  when  you  begin  to  read;  its  most  valuable 
items  may  come  when  you  think  that  you  are  almost  ready 
to  begin  to  write. 

3.  Before  you  begin  to  read,  it  is  well  to  note  on  a  card 
the  exact  thing  that  you  are  going  to  prove  or  to  disprove; 
for  instance:  Is   the  Kensington   Rune   Stone  genuine   or 
spurious?    To  answer  this  question,  you  will  have  to  collect 
and  test  the  evidence  on  both  sides.    But  you  have  a  fairly 
long  bibliography.    Where  shall  you  begin  to  read?    With 


RESEARCH  WORK  383 

the  works  that  seem  to  bear  the  stamp  of  the  best  authority. 
In  this  case  you  have  the  reports  of  various  professors  and 
other  experts.  If  you  cannot  at  once  choose  among  them, 
begin  with  the  most  recent,  which  should,  if  it  is  properly 
done,  sum  up  all  earlier  work  and  show  the  present  status  of 
the  problem. 

In  reading,  keep  your  question  in  mind  as  a  hunting  dog 
tries  to  keep  the  scent,  never  being  tempted  into  byways; 
and  note  the  facts  and  inferences  presented  as  to  the  finding 
of  the  stone,  its  geological  quality,  its  traces  of  age,  the  char- 
acter of  the  letters  and  the  inscription — everything  that  sug- 
gests antiquity  or  forgery.  Then  proceed  to  the  authority 
that  seems  to  you  next  in  importance,  preferably  one  who 
draws  a  different  conclusion  from  that  reached  in  the  last 
work;  and  examine  with  equal  care  his  facts  and  inferences. 
Continue  the  process  until  you  feel  that  you  have  got  before 
you  all  the  facts  in  the  case,  each  carefully  noted  on  its  card, 
with  its  reference.  As  you  read,  you  wnll  begin  to  form  your 
conclusion,  and  you  will  begin  to  mass  in  your  mind  the  facts 
that  support  it;  you  must  be  equally  careful  to  mass  over 
against  these  the  facts  that  do  not  support  it:  this  is  a  point 
which  even  good  scholars  sometimes  neglect.  But  a  paper 
which  reaches  only  a  tentative  conclusion,  frankly  present- 
ing the  difficulties  as  well  as  the  facts  upon  which  the  con- 
clusion is  based,  is  worth  something;  one  that  neglects  the 
other  side,  is  worth  nothing. 

4.  In  writing  your  paper,  you  should  begin  with  a  state- 
ment of  the  doubtful  issue,  or  of  the  accepted  hypothesis  from 
which  you  take  your  point  of  departure,  summing  up  in 
footnotes  the  authorities  in  which  the  material  is  to  be 
found.  You  are  then  ready  to  present  the  reasons  which  led 
to  your  investigation,  and  to  produce,  according  to  some 
definite  plan  of  development,  your  results.  Spread  out  your 
cards  on  a  large  table  and  begin. 

For  every  step  in  the  presentation  you  must  refer  to  your 


384  THE  WRITING  OF  ENGLISH 

authority  so  that  your  reader  can  satisfy  himself  as  to  the 
correctness  of  each  inference.  To  do  this  without  clogging 
your  text  so  that  the  argument  is  buried  in  a  mass  of  de- 
tails, you  must  use  footnotes.  Your  chief  difficulty  in  this 
connection  at  first  will  be  in  deciding  when  to  use  footnotes. 
In  general,  they  are  used  as  follows: 

1.  Practically  always  for  exact  references  to  authorities; 

2.  For  the  explanation  and  amplification  of  supporting 
facts  when  these  may  possibly  be  misunderstood; 

3.  For  the  citation  of  facts  in  support  of  statements  which 
have  been  generally  accepted  as  true,  but  which  the  reader, 
on  account  of  the  limitations  of  his  knowledge,  may  not  at 
once  accept  without  seeing  the  evidence. 

It  is  only  after  much  practice,  of  course,  that  you  will  be 
able  at  once  to  discriminate  between  material  for  your  text 
and  for  footnotes.  For  the  form  and  placing  of  footnotes, 
see  Appendix  I,  p.  413. 

These  general  directions  may  give  you  a  starting-point 
for  your  investigation;  but  as  the  very  essence  of  research 
work  is  independence,  you  will  immediately  have  to  begin 
to  feel  your  way  for  yourself  and  train  yourself  as  you  go. 

SUGGESTED  SUBJECTS  FOR  TERM  PAPERS 

1.  The  Kensington  Rune  Stone 

2.  The  Early  History  of  Football  (or  Hockey,  or  Golf,  or  Tennis) 

3.  The  Origin  of  Phi  Beta  Kappa 

4.  The  Canning  Club  Movement  in  the  United  States 

5.  Experiments  in  New  Methods  of  City  Government 

6.  The  Beginnings  of  the  Aeroplane  (or  the  Submarine) 

7.  Inventions  and  Discoveries  Due  to  the  War 

8.  The  Symbolism  of  Oriental  Rugs 

9.  Patent  Medicine  Frauds  in  the  United  States 

10.  The  Beginnings  of  Free  Verse  in  the  Twentieth  Century 

11.  Shakespeare's  Knowledge  of  Horses  and  Dogs 

12.  The  Effect  of  Indian  Music  on  Macdowell 

13.  The  Housing  Problem  in  (whatever  city  you  have  opportunity 
to  study) 


RESEARCH  WORK  385 

14.  The  Life  and  Work  of  Ambrose  Bierce 

15.  Experiments  in  Government  Ownership  of  Railways 

16.  The  Immediate  Influence  of  the  War  on  the  Short-Story, 
as  shown  by  a  study  of  the  Saturday  Evening  Post,  September, 
1914-March,  1915 

17.  The  Immediate  Influence  of  the  War  on  Journalistic  Vocabu- 
lary, as  shown  by  a  study  of  the  New  York  Times,  the  Phila- 
delphia Ledger,   the  Boston   Transcript,  or  the   Chicago   Tribune, 
August-October,  1914 

18.  The  Career  and  Influence  of  Vincent  d'Indy   (or  Claude 
Debussy,  or  Cesar  Franck) 

19.  Vocational  Education  Experiments  in  (some  city  known  to 
you) 

20.  The  Beginnings  of  the  Cubists 

21.  The  Scandinavian  Theory  of  Historical  Museums 

22.  The  Work  and  Influence  of  Luther  Burbank 


CHAPTER  XXII 
LETTER-WRITING 

1.  PERSONAL  LETTERS 

THE  success  of  a  letter  depends  quite  as  much  upon  the 
recipient  as  upon  the  writer.  Its  first  condition  is  a  state  of 
entire  confidence  and  ease  between  the  two  persons  concerned, 
the  result  of  which  is  spontaneity.  In  short,  the  more  a 
personal  letter  reproduces  the  informality  of  talk,  the  better 
it  serves  its  purpose,  which  is  to  take  the  place  of  a  friendly 
conversation. 

Perhaps  the  first  rule  for  letter- writing  is:  Keep  your 
correspondent  in  mind,  and  try  to  write  what  you  would 
say  to  him  in  talk.  If  you  once  acquire  this  attitude,  you 
will  find  yourself  at  no  loss  for  something  to  say.  Every  letter 
that  you  write  will  take  on  a  special  character — will  be 
colored  by  the  personality  of  your  correspondent  and  by 
the  nature  of  the  relationship  between  you. 

Another  rule  for  becoming  a  good  letter-writer  is  to  write 
often,  not  merely  because  you  will  gain  the  flexibility  that 
comes  from  constant  practice,  but  because  if  you  are  in 
close  touch  with  your  correspondent,  you  can  begin  each 
letter  without  apologies  and  summaries  of  long  periods  of 
time,  and  other  introductory  matter,  chilling  to  the  pen  of 
the  writer,  and  trying  to  the  patience  of  the  reader. 

Good  form  is  one  thing:  formality  another.  Good  form  is 
essential.  It  means  that  you  must  use  good  paper  of  con- 
ventional size,  neutral  color,  and  plain;  good  ink  and  a  good 
pen;  that  you  should  cover  the  pages  in  the  right  order, 
and  number  the  sheets;  that  you  should  fold  your  letter 


LETTER-WRITING  387 

properly,  place  it  in  the  envelope  properly,  place  the  stamp 
on  the  envelope  properly;  use  the  correct  forms  for  heading, 
greeting,  close,  signature,  and  address  on  the  envelope — in 
short,  that  you  should  conform  to  recognized  good  manners 
in  letter- writing  as  in  other  aspects  of  life.  If  you  are  in 
doubt  as  to  any  of  these  points,  you  will  find  detailed  direc- 
tions in  Appendix  I. 

Formality  is  unnecessary  and  burdensome  to  both  writer 
and  reader.  It  is  based  largely  on  the  mistaken  idea  that 
circumlocution  is  polite,  and  crops  out  in  expressions  that 
seem  to  have  survived  from  the  days  of  the  old  Polite  Letter- 
Writers — the  hoping-you-are-well-as-this-Ieaves-me  kind  of 
thing — and  the  half  unconscious  multiplication  of  useless 
words  vaguely  supposed  to  "make  it  sound  better."  The 
remedy  for  this  mode  of  expression  is  to  pull  yourself  up  short 
with  the  question:  "Why  not  write  it  as  I  should  say  it?'* 
Be  yourself. 

There  is  scarcely  any  subject  which  may  not  be  made 
interesting  in  a  letter,  although  personal  afflictions  and  griev- 
ances usually  need  a  good  deal  of  the  salt  of  humor  to  make 
them  palatable.  Unless  this  can  be  supplied,  it  is  a  happy 
second  thought  that  posts  letters  on  these  topics  in  the  fire. 
But  no  incident  of  daily  life  is  too  trivial  to  suggest  the  per- 
sonality of  the  writer — which  is  of  course  the  source  of  in- 
terest to  the  correspondent.  Hear  Stevenson  on  this  point: 

I  begin  to  see  the  whole  scheme  of  letter-writing;  you  sit  down 
every  day  and  pour  out  an  equable  stream  of  twaddle. 

His  own  "twaddle"  conjures  up  the  liveliest  sort  of  picture 
of  himself  and  his  life.  In  the  same  letter  he  tells  how  he  had 
been  working  at  the 

South  Seas,  how  "Fanny,  awfully  hove-to  with  rheumatics  and 
injuries  received  upon  the  field  of  sport  and  glory,  chasing  pigs, 
was  unable  to  go  up  and  down  stairs,  so  she  sat  upon  the  back 
verandah,  and  my  work  was  chequered  by  her  cries."  .  .  . 


388  THE  WRITING  OF  ENGLISH 

Carlyle  describing  his  meeting  with  Queen  Victoria,  does 
not  stop  with  details  about  her  appearance,  manner,  and 
words,  but  touches  upon  all  sorts  of  trifles  which  help  to 
make  us  realize  the  scene,  such  as: 

The  Stanleys  and  we  were  all  in  a  flow  of  talk,  and  some  flunkies 
had  done  setting  coffee-pots,  tea-cups  of  sublime  patterns,  when 
Her  Majesty,  punctual  to  a  minute,  glided  softly  in  ...  a  kindly 
smile  on  her  face;  gently  shook  hands  with  all  three  women,  gently 
acknowledged  with  a  nod  the  silent  deep  bows  of  us  male  monsters, 
and  directly  in  her  presence  everybody  was  at  ease  again.  .  .  . 
Coffee  (very  black  and  muddy)  was  handed  round ;  Queen  and  three 
women  taking  seats  in  opposite  corners,  Mrs.  Grote  in  a  chair  in- 
trusively close  to  Majesty,  Lady  Lyall  modestly  at  the  diagonal 
corner;  we  others  obliged  to  stand  and  hover  within  call.  ... 

With  a  sense  of  humor,  one  can  make  a  delightful  letter 
out  of  a  situation  usually  regarded  as  difficult  to  handle; 
for  instance,  Lewis  Carroll  made  a  page  of  fun  out  of  birth- 
day congratulations,  and  Charles  Lamb  wrote  a  letter  of 
thanks  for  a  pig,  which  effervesces  with  high  spirits. 

The  art  of  letter-writing  is  worth  cultivation.  The  gossip 
of  Horace  Walpole,  the  irrepressible  variety  of  Charles  Lamb, 
the  chit-chat  of  Jane  Austen,  the  pictorial  vividness  of  the 
Carlyle  letters,  the  romance  of  the  Browning  letters — are 
more  interesting  than  most  novels.  In  fact,  few  volumes  of 
letters  are  dull  reading  except  such  as  are  consciously  lit- 
erary. You  will  find  matter  of  interest  almost  anywhere, 
working  back  from  the  twentieth  century,  through  the  eight- 
eenth— which  is  almost  epitomized  by  Steele,  Walpole,  and 
Lady  Mary  Wortley  Montague — to  the  earliest  familiar  letters 
that  have  survived  in  English,  the  Paston  letters  of  the  fif- 
teenth century.  Wide  reading  of  letters  by  many  interesting 
people  will  do  more  than  anything  else  to  stimulate  your 
own  powers  in  this  direction. 

The  chief  difficulty  in  developing  the  art  of  letter-writing 
is  the  real  or  fancied  pressure  upon  our  time,  which  keeps 
us  from  free  play  with  details  for  their  own  sake,  the  full 


LETTER-WRITING  389 

quotation  of  what  was  said  for  its  own  sake,  the  leisurely 
comment,  the  yielding  to  mood  and  whim,  which  enter  so 
largely  into  the  old  letters.  As  to  this,  all  that  can  be  said 
is  that  those  who  write  and  receive  charming  letters  seem  to 
find  in  them  their  own  reward. 

It  may  be  worth  while  to  hint  that  wise  people  always 
read  their  letters  carefully  before  despatching  them. 

The  first  and  last  rule  for  answering  letters  is:  Answer 
them — and  promptly.  Few  things  in  life  are  more  annoying 
than  to  ask  questions  in  a  letter  and  to  have  either  no  answer 
at  all  or  an  answer  that  is  vague  or  obscure.  Carelessness 
in  regard  to  the  correspondent's  point  of  view  often  leads  to 
cross-purposes  and  estrangement  between  friends,  or  to  a  very 
unfavorable  impression  on  the  part  of  a  stranger.  For  this 
reason,  make  a  practice  of  always  having  your  correspond- 
ent's letter  at  hand  when  you  are  replying  to  it.  Refer  to  it 
often  enough  not  only  to  answer  any  questions  that  it  may 
contain,  but  also  to  make  your  letter  fit  into  its  mood. 

If  the  letter  that  you  have  to  answer  is  a  long  one  con- 
taining many  details,  you  will  find  that  it  will  save  time  and 
secure  completeness  if  you  will  read  the  letter  through  care- 
fully, making  notes  as  you  go  of  the  topics  that  you  wish 
to  discuss  and  the  points  you  wish  to  make  in  your  reply. 
You  can  then  with  a  few  moments'  thought  arrange  these 
topics  and  points  in  the  order  in  which  you  wish  to  take 
them  up. 

A  short,  prompt  reply  is  usually  worth  more  than  a  tardy 
one  twice  as  long. 

The  Formal  Invitation  and  the  Reply  to  it  are  a 
special  type  of  Personal  Letter. 

To  people  who  do  not  know  how  to  write  them,  formal 
invitations  are  a  bugbear.  In  reality  they  are  very  simple. 
In  replying  to  a  formal  invitation  of  any  kind,  you  have  only 
to  follow  as  closely  as  possible  the  style  and  phrasing  of  the 
invitation.  In  sending  out  such  invitations  it  is  well  to  be 


390  THE  WRITING  OF  ENGLISH 

guided  by  the  advice  of  a  good  stationer,  if  the  occasion  de- 
mands engraved  invitations;  otherwise,  to  learn  the  simple 
formulas  which  are  in  general  use.  The  three  chief  points  to 
be  remembered  are: 

1.  Use  the  third  person  throughout. 

2.  Spell  out  all  numerals,  even  your  street  number. 

3.  Arrange  your  spaces  so  that  the  note  is  "centered" 
on  the  page. 

The  reasons  behind  these  conventions  are  probably  that 
the  use  of  the  third  person  is  less  familiar;  that  numerals  are 
associated  with  business;  and  that  "centering"  gives  an 
appearance  of  formal  care. 

ASSIGNMENT 

1.  Look  over  half  a  dozen  volumes  of  letters  in  your  library, 
reading  here  and  there  such  as  attract  you.    Make  notes  of  things 
that  interest  you  in  subject-matter  or  in  treatment.  Quote  from  each 
volume  one  or  more  passages  which  seem  to  you  unusually  charming 
or  amusing,  or  otherwise  worth  note,  and  bring  these,  together 
with  your  own  comments,  to  class  for  discussion  on:  What  is  an 
interesting  letter? 

2.  Write  a  letter  to  anyone  you  please,  or  bring  a  letter  that 
you  have  written,  for  class  criticism  as  to  paper  and  general  matters 
of  form.    If  it  is  found  defective,  repeat  the  exercise  until  no  further 
criticism  can  be  made  by  class  or  teacher. 

3.  Answer  one  of  these  letters,  touching  upon  each  point  that  it 
suggests.    The  answers  should  be  criticized  in  class  for  both  content 
and  form. 

4.  Study  carefully  and  in  detail  the  forms  on  pp.  417f.  and 
model  after  each  an  invitation  and  two  replies,  an  acceptance 
and  a  note  of  regret.     After  class  criticism  correct  and  copy. 

2.  ROUTINE  BUSINESS  LETTERS 

Business  letters  are  of  two  kinds:  routine  and  construc- 
tive. 

Routine  letters  are  very  simple.  The  rules  for  them  may 
be  summed  up  under  the  letter  C.  They  should  be  correct, 


LETTER- WRITING  391 

clear,  concise,  and  courteous,  and,  when  written  in  reply, 
should  consider  the  content  of  the  correspondent's  communi- 
cation. 

To  be  correct,  they  must  be  written  in  good  form  and  in 
correct  English.  For  details  on  these  matters,  see  Appendix 
I  pp.  418f. 

For  the  sake  of  clearness,  a  typewritten  letter  should  be 
double-spaced,  or  if  single-spaced,  double-spaced  between 
paragraphs.  Sentences  should  tend  to  be  short,  for  two 
reasons:  because  short  sentences  are  more  emphatic,  and 
because  they  reduce  the  number  of  pronouns  and  so  min- 
imize possible  ambiguity  of  reference. 

A  good  practical  way  to  train  yourself  in  clearness  is  to 
read  each  letter  aloud  when  it  is  written — not  merely  read  it, 
but  read  it  aloud,  and  if  you  can,  from  the  correspondent's 
point  of  view,  asking  yourself  after  each  sentence:  "What 
does  this  mean?  Could  it  bear  any  other  interpretation  than 
that  which  first  occurred  to  me?"  After  a  time  you  will  be 
able  quickly  to  detect  phrases  and  weirds  that  admit  of  mis- 
understanding. 

Many  business  men  make  it  a  rule  to  confine  each  letter  to 
a  single  point,  and  for  two  reasons.  One  is,  that  the  cor- 
respondent's full  attention  is  thus  secured  for  each  point. 
If  he  reads  a  letter  upon  several  matters,  he  naturally  pays 
most  attention  to  that  in  which  he  is  chiefly  interested. 
He  may  forget  to  consider  the  others;  or  if  it  is  to  his  advan- 
tage to  do  so,  he  may  deliberately  omit  to  refer  to  them  in  his 
reply.  The  second  reason  is,  that  in  many  business  houses 
letters  are  filed  under  their  subjects.  If  a  letter  deals  with 
several  subjects,  it  is  troublesome  to  file  and  if  needed  again 
it  may  be  hard  to  find. 

If  each  letter  is  limited  to  a  single  point,  conciseness  is 
almost  sure  to  result.  Hence,  the  emphasis  should  be  rather 
on  courtesy.  Remember  that  it  always  pays  to  take  time 
to  be  courteous.  The  first  rule  of  courtesy  is  to  try  to  get 


392  THE  WRITING  OF  ENGLISH 

your  correspondent's  point  of  view;  the  second,  to  try  to  put 
yourself  in  his  place;  and  the  third,  to  write  him  such  a  letter 
as  you  yourself,  in  his  circumstances,  would  be  pleased  to 
receive.  Have  you  not  noticed  the  invariable  courtesy  of 
the  best  firms  even  to  the  most  insignificant  people  and  in 
the  most  trifling  matters? 

Courtesy  demands  also  exactness  in  replying  to  the  points 
of  inquiry  in  the  correspondent's  letter.  This  saves  time 
and  energy,  and  is  conducive  to  the  establishment  and  main- 
tenance of  friendly  business  relations. 

Routine  business  letters  include  inquiries  and  the  replies 
to  them;  orders  and  letters  accompanying  the  goods;  cor- 
respondence in  connection  with  errors  in  bills  and  the  pay- 
ment of  bills,  etc. 

ASSIGNMENT 

1.  Collect  as  many  business  letters  as  you  can.    Lay  aside  those 
that  seem  to  you  to  be  constructive — out  of  the  usual  routine  of 
business;  and  discuss  the  routine  letters,  criticizing  them  as  to  form 
and  content. 

2.  Write  the  following  routine  letters: 

(1)  An  order  for  goods 

(2)  The  firm's  reply 

(3)  A  letter  urging  payment  of  a  bill 

(4)  A  letter  to  a  business  man,  asking  for  special  information 

(5)  His  reply 

(6)  A  letter  to  an  editor,  offering  a  contribution 

(7)  A  formal  letter  of  reference 

(8)  As  chairman  of  a  committee,  a  report  on  the  matter  for  which 
the  committee  was  appointed. 

As  far  as  you  can,  use  as  models  the  letters  that  you  have  col- 
lected and  discussed;  but  do  not  hesitate  to  improve  upon  them. 
Refer  to  Appendix  I  when  in  doubt  as  to  form. 

These  letters  should  be  read  and  discussed  in  class  until  you 
have  no  doubt  as  to  the  principles  that  govern  all  letters  of  these 
types. 


LETTER-WRITING  393 

3.  OFFICIAL  AND  FORM  LETTERS 

In  big  business  houses  the  practice  is  increasing  of  putting 
business  letters  between  officials  in  the  form  of  memoranda. 
The  form  of  the  letter  is  thus  reduced  to  this: 

Smith,  Brown,  and  Co. 
Credit  Department 

Memorandum 

April  8,  1918 
To  Mr.  E.  C.  Jayne 

Subject:  Charles  M.  Martin 

1.  We  have  already  filled  the  position  to  which 

you  refer. 

2.  We  suggest  that  Mr.  Martin's  services  might  be 

useful  to  the  Shipping  Department. 

G.  H.  Hill 

As  you  see,  the  greeting  and  close  are  discarded  as  unnec- 
essary and  wasteful  of  time  and  money.  Only  one  subject  is 
discussed;  and  it  is  analyzed,  and  the  headings  are  numbered 
so  that  the  content  of  the  letter  can  be  seen  at  a  glance.  This 
form  is  convenient  for  writing  and  reading  and  filing;  and 
it  effects  a  saving  of  time  and  energy  for  writer,  stenographer, 
and  recipient. 

Form  letters  are  of  two  types.  One  type  is  made  up  in  the 
main  of  paragraphs  which  have  previously  been  devised  for 
all  letters  of  its  general  character;  and  if  anything  out  of  the 
routine  needs  to  be  said,  this  is  embodied  in  a  special  par- 
agraph. This  special  paragraph  is  the  only  one  that  requires 
the  attention  of  the  official  who  dictates  the  letter. 

The  second  type  of  form  letter  is  simply  a  multigraphed 
letter;  that  is,  it  is  written  as  a  whole,  adapted  as  well  as 
possible  to  a  large  number  of  people,  and  then  printed  from 
type  especially  designed  to  give  the  appearance  of  type- 
writing. Sometimes  it  is  sent  without  personal  appeal;  but 


394  THE  WRITING  OF  ENGLISH 

often  the  name  of  each  person  addressed  is  filled  in  with 
typewriting  to  match  the  rest  of  the  letter  as  exactly  as  pos- 
sible. The  signature  is  sometimes  written  with  a  pen;  but 
often  it,  too,  is  a  printed  imitation.  Such  letters  are  used  for 
many  legitimate  purposes;  but  there  can  be  no  doubt  that 
many  inexperienced  persons  are  deceived  into  regarding  them 
as  genuine  personal  letters. 

The  student  who  plans  to  write  business  letters  profession- 
ally should  make  a  careful  study  of  the  different  types  of 
letters  used  by  people  in  different  business  relationships. 
No  general  rules  can  be  given,  because  business  transactions 
range  from  the  formal  memorandum,  through  ordinary 
business  forms,  to  the  purely  personal  communication  of  the 
familiar  letter  type.  Even  when  all  the  forms  have  been 
learned,  there  is  abundant  occasion  for  the  exercise  of  taste 
and  judgment  in  deciding  which  form  to  use  for  each  special 
case.  Moreover,  it  is  important  to  keep  absolutely  up  to 
date,  as  forms  are  continually  changing. 

ASSIGNMENT 

1.  Write  in  the  form  of  official  memoranda  a  letter  from  one 
official  to  another  on  a  piece  of  business  that  involves  several  prob- 
lems and  write  the  reply  in  the  same  form. 

2.  Prepare  for  use  in  a  department  store  the  opening  and  closing 
paragraphs  of  a  form  letter  replying  to  a  complaint  and  promising 
to  investigate. 

3.  Write  a  form  letter  from  the  secretary  of  a  charitable  organ- 
ization, appealing  for  subscriptions  and  supporting  the  appeal  by 
a  brief  statement  of  the  work  of  the  organization. 

4.  CONSTRUCTIVE  BUSINESS  LETTERS 

Constructive  business  letters — letters  written  to  do  busi- 
ness— are  the  commonest  application  to-day  of  the  art  of 
persuasion.  They  are  written  for  the  purpose  of  making  the 
correspondent  take  the  writer's  point  of  view  in  a  matter 


LETTER-WRITING  395 

which  the  writer  obviously  urges  for  his  own  advantage. 
If  the  correspondent  can  be  made  to  see  that  the  advantage 
is  mutual,  the  business  is  done. 

Success  in  this  type  of  letter  depends  partly  upon  the 
writer's  knowledge  of  the  workings  of  the  human  mind, 
partly  upon  the  degree  to  which  he  succeeds  in  taking  his 
correspondent's  point  of  view  as  the  first  step  toward 
changing  it,  and  partly  upon  the  skill  with  which  the  letter 
is  written. 

Experience  with  human  nature  tells  the  writer  that  the 
chances  are  that  the  recipient  of  the  letter  will  be  either  in- 
different or  disinclined  to  his  proposition.  The  problem, 
then,  is  how  to  avoid  increasing  this  disinclination,  if  it  exists, 
how  to  overcome  this  indifference.  The  first  step  must  be 
to  begin  with  something  that  will  attract  his  attention  and 
hold  it,  that  will  appeal  to  his  reason,  his  tastes,  or  his 
prejudices. 

If  you  know  the  individual  to  whom  you  are  writing,  your 
problem  is  greatly  simplified.  You  can  visualize  him,  and 
ask  yourself:  "How  would  old  Sharpeye  take  this?  "  You 
know  more  or  less  about  his  tastes  and  his  prejudices,  and 
you  can  appeal  to  the  one  and  avoid  the  other. 

When  you  do  not  know  your  correspondent,  you  have  only 
general  principles  to  guide  you,  such  as  the  fact  that  people  like 
to  be  comfortable,  to  be  thought  individual  and  up-to-date, 
to  get  their  money's  worth,  to  have  as  many  conveniences 
and  luxuries  as  their  neighbors,  and  so  on.  You  also  know 
that  different  classes  of  people  must  be  appealed  to  in  dif- 
ferent ways.  You  will  not  write  to  a  college  professor,  a 
farmer,  a  soapmaker,  and  a  railway  conductor  in  the  same 
terms.  If  it  is  your  business  to  write  to  them  all,  you  will 
adapt  the  general  principles  of  human  nature  to  meet  the 
peculiar  developments  of  character  that  grow  out  of  occupa- 
tion and  habit. 

When  you  have  made  up  your  mind  as  to  the  land  of  letter 


396  THE  WRITING  OF  ENGLISH 

that  will  probably  appeal  to  your  correspondent,  you  will 
try  to  put  yourself  in  his  place,  asking  yourself:  "If  I  were 
Professor  Gaunt  or  Farmer  Hayrick,  what  should  I  say  to 
myself  on  reading  such  a  letter?  "  And  in  accordance  with  the 
answer  that  you  make  to  yourself,  your  letter  should  be  re- 
vised and  rephrased.  Naturally,  the  more  experience  you 
have  of  people,  the  nearer  will  you  come  to  guessing  right 
the  first  time. 

The  style  of  the  letter  will  vary  according  to  your  concep- 
tion of  its  recipient;  but  in  most  cases  reasonableness  has  a 
better  effect  than  dogmatic  statement  or  even  strict  argu- 
ment. People  like  to  be  led  imperceptibly,  and  to  believe 
that  the  decisions  which  they  are  helped  to  make  are  really 
of  their  own  making.  However  much  "punch"  and  "pep'* 
you  use  in  stating  the  advantages  of  your  proposition— and 
many  persons  resent  "punch"  and  "pep,"  and  decline  to  be 
''  hustled  " — the  main  thing  is  to  establish  in  your  corre- 
spondent by  suggestion  the  feeling  that  he  will  be  the  loser 
if  he  does  not  agree  to  the  plan  you  propose. 

If  you  form  the  habit  of  examining  critically  all  sorts  of 
business  proposals,  you  will  soon  learn  to  recognize  those 
that  have  the  right  tone  and  get  results.  You  can  judge  in 
some  measure  by  noting  their  effect  upon  yourself,  and  then 
analyzing  them  to  see  why  they  had  such  an  effect.  Careful 
study  of  successful  letters  is  the  best  means  of  becoming  a 
writer  of  such  letters. 

ASSIGNMENT 

1.  Discuss  such  constructive  business  letters  as  you  have  been 
able  to  obtain,  by  analyzing  their  effects  upon  yourself. 

2.  Write  a  business  letter  addressed  to  some  business  man  of 
your  acquaintance,  trying  to  sell  him  a  house.     Keep  in  mind 
throughout  your  letter  the  kind  of  man  with  whom  you  are  dealing, 
and  also  the  kind  of  house;  try  to  make  him  see  that  the  house  will 
exactly  meet  his  requirements. 


LETTER-WRITING  397 

3.  These  letters  being  exchanged,  reply  to  the  one  that  you  re- 
ceive, according  to  the  effect  that  it  makes  upon  you.    If  it  makes 
you  feel  strongly  inclined  to  buy,  write  a  letter  in  which  you  try  to 
arrange  for  better  terms.    If  you  are  not  persuaded  that  the  pur- 
chase is  advisable,  your  reply  will  be  an  unfavorable  criticism  of  the 
original  letter. 

This  correspondence  may  be  continued  until  several  letters  have 
been  exchanged. 

4.  Cut  out  three  "Help  Wanted"  notices  from  a  newspaper,  and 
answer  them  in  such  a  way  that  the  advertiser  will  wish  to  engage 
you  rather  than  the  other  applicants. 

5.  These  letters  should  be  exchanged  and  answered  in  the  person 
of  the  advertiser.    The  reply  will  show  the  success  of  the  original 
letter. 

C.  The  whole  class  should  reply  to  one  or  more  advertisements 
chosen  by  the  instructor;  and  the  best  among  these  replies  should 
form  the  basis  of  class  discussion. 

7.  Write  a  letter  to  your  senator  on  some  matter  that  concerns 
the  public  welfare. 

8.  Write  a  letter  to  your  newspaper,  complaining  of  some  public 
nuisance. 


CHAPTER  XXIII 
VERSE 

1.  METER 

THERE  are  three  elements  in  the  rhythm  of  verse.  In 
addition  to  word  accent,  and  emphasis  according  to  the 
meaning  of  the  sentence,  a  regular  arrangement  of. so  many 
stressed  and  so  many  unstressed  syllables  is  imposed  upon 
each  line.  As  a  rule  either  one  or  two  unstressed  syllables 
are  combined  with  a  stressed  syllable  to  form  what  is  called  a 
foot.  The  feet  commonly  recognized  in  English  are: 

1.  One  unstressed  syllable  followed  by  one  stressed:  iam- 
bus, iambic  foot: 

She  knows  not  what  the  curse  may  be, 

And  so,  she  weaveth  steadily, 

>         i  t  i 

And  little  other  care  hath  she, 

The  Lady  of  Shalott.— Tennyson. 

2.  One   stressed  syllable  followed  by  one  unstressed:  tro- 
chee, trochaic  foot: 

Willows  whiten,  aspens  quiver, 
Little  breezes  dusk  and  shiver, 
Thro'  the  wave  that  runs  forever 
By  the  island  in  the  river 

Flowing  down  to  Camelot.  .  .  . — Tennyson. 

3.  Two  unstressed  syllables  followed  by  one  stressed  sylla- 
ble: anapest,  anapestic  foot: 

398 


VERSE  399 

And  the  king  seized  a  flambeau  with  zeal  to  destroy; 


4.  One  stressed  syllable  followed   by  two  unstressed  sylla- 
bles: dactyl,  dactylic  foot: 

Shedding  my  song  upon  height,  upon  hollow  (hollow  =  trochee) 

— Suvinburne. 

5.  Two  stressed  syllables,    one   of   which  represents  either 
one  or  two  unstressed  syllables:  spondee,  spondaic  foot: 

The  long  day  wanes:  the  slow  moon  climbs:  the  deep 
Moans  round  with  many  voices.  .  .  .  — Tennyson. 

Here  the  syllables  day,  moon,  moans,  take  the  place  of  a 
single  unstressed  syllable. 

Sing,  while  the  hours  and  the  wild  birds  follow.  .  .  . 

— Swinburne. 

Here  the  syllable  birds  represents  two  unstressed  syllables. 

You  will  find  by  experiment  in  reading  aloud  that  the 
lines  beginning  with  stressed  syllables  move  more  quickly 
and  lightly  than  those  beginning  with  unstressed  syllables, 
that  the  dactyl  is  quicker  than  the  trochee  because  of  the 
additional  unstressed  syllable,  and  that  the  spondee  with 
its  two  stressed  syllables  is  slowest  of  all.  Note  the  effect  of 
the  two  spondees  in  the  fifth  example. 

These  five  feet  are  variously  combined  in  lines  of  different 
lengths.  Usually  the  dactyls  and  trochees  are  found  to- 
gether, and  the  anapests  and  iambi;  the  spondees  may  be 
used  anywhere.  But  perhaps  the  commonest  substitution 
of  all  is  the  trochee  for  the  iambus: 

I  cannot  rest  from  travel:  I  will  drink 
Life  to  the  lees :  all  times  I  have  enjoy'd 


400  THE  WRITING  OF  ENGLISH 

Greatly,  have  suffer'd  greatly,  both  with  those 
That  loved  me,  and  alone — Tennyson. 

The  commonest  line  in  English  is  the  iambic  pentameter, 
consisting  of  five  iambi,  with  occasional  substitution  of 
trochees  or  spondees — a  substitution  especially  common  in 
the  first  foot. 

In  the  following  examples,  note  how  the  word  accent  and 
the  emphasis  required  to  bring  out  the  sense,  and  the  beat 
of  the  verse  at  times  come  together  and  again  fall  apart: 

And  the  first  grey  of  morning  fill'd  the  east. 

And  the  fog  rose  out  of  the  Oxus  stream. 

But  all  the  Tartar  camp  along  the  stream 

Was  hush'd,  and  still  the  men  were  plunged  in  sleep; 

Sohrab  alone,  he  slept  not;  all  night  long 

He  had  lain  wakeful,  tossing  on  his  bed;  .... 

— Matthew  Arnold. 

Here,  as  it  happens,  the  word  accents  all  coincide  with  the 
verse  accents;  but  the  verse  accents  and  sense  stresses 
diverge  widely.  Sometimes  the  sense  requires  as  many  as 
eight  stresses,  sometimes  only  four;  and  the  verse  accents 
fall  on  words  quite  unimportant  to  the  sense.  The  art  of 
reading  such  verse  consists  in  keeping  a  nice  adjustment 
between  the  different  stresses,  letting  the  five  beats  of  the 
line  be  felt  distinctly,  and  yet  throwing  the  main  emphasis 
on  the  sense. 

The  iambic  pentameter  line  unrhymed  is  called  blank  verse. 
As  in  the  passage  quoted  above,  it  contains  usually  more  or 
less  than  the  five  stresses  normal  to  the  meter.  According 
to  the  sense,  the  commonest  number  of  stresses  is  four;  but 
three  are  found  also: 


In  offices  of  tenderness  and  pay 

— Wordsworth. 


VERSE  401 

And,  on  the  other  hand,  there  may  be  as  many  as  eight  or 
even  more. 

Of  rhyming  lines,  very  common  is  the  pentameter  couplet, 
called  the  heroic  couplet: 

Tis  hard  to  say  if  greater  want  of  skill 
Appear  in  writing  or  in  judging  ill,  .  .  . — Pope 
Common  also  is  the  four  foot — tetrameter — couplet: 

The  fire,  with  well-dried  logs  supplied, 

Went  roaring  up  the  chimney  wide; 

The  huge  hall-table's  oaken  face, 

Scrubbed  till  it  shone,  the  day  to  grace.  .  .  .—Scott. 

As  parts  of  different  stanza  forms,  we  find  also  one-foot 
lines  (monometer),  two-foot  lines  (dimeter),  three-foot  lines 
(trimeter),  six-foot  lines  (hexameter),  and  even  seven-foot 
lines  (heptameter) .  These  it  is  not  necessary  to  discuss,  as 
they  combine  in  all  sorts  of  ways  and  consist  of  all  kinds 
of  combinations  of  feet. 

Of  stanzaic  arrangements  of  lines,  the  commonest  are:  the 
four-line  stanza  (ballad  meter);  six-line  stanza;  eight-line 
stanza  (ottava  rima);  the  seven-line  stanza  (rhyme-royal), 
the  nine-line  stanza  (Spenserian);  the  twelve-line  stanza;  and 
the  sonnet  (fourteen-line  poem  in  stanzaic  form).  The  six, 
eight,  and  twelve-line  stanzas  are  various  arrangements  of 
five,  four,  and  three  feet;  and  the  rhyme  schemes  are  in  all 
sorts  of  patterns.  We  shall  speak  in  more  detail  of  the  other 
stanza  forms. 

In  addition  to  rhyme,  which  is  a  structural  feature  in 
binding  couplets  together  and  stanzas  together,  English  uses 
as  a  device  for  ornament  alliteration — the  association  of  a 
group  of  words  by  beginning  them  with  the  same  letter.  In 
Old  English  this  was  structural — that  is,  it  held  together  the 


402  THE  WRITING  OF  ENGLISH 

two  parts  of  a  line: 

In  a  summer  season  when  soft  was  the  Sunshine. 

To-day,  however,  the  alliteration  is  inserted  at  irregular 
intervals,  to  link  together  words  already  associated  closely 
in  sense;  they  thus  become  doubly  rememberable : 

.  .  .  magic  casements,  opening  on  the  foam 
Of  perilous  seas,  in  faery  lands  forlorn. — Keats. 

Alliteration  is  only  one  of  the  many  devices  for  associating 
sounds  to  secure  particular  effects .  The  study  of  the  group- 
ings of  vowels  and  consonants  for  the  sake  of  their  tone 
values  would  make  a  separate  book;  but  even  now,  in  connec- 
tion with  the  study  of  verse,  you  can  train  your  eye  and  ear 
to  observe  the  difference  between  the  work  of  poets  who  use 
sounds  in  this  way  and  those  who  do  not.  Compare,  for 
instance,  Keats's  poems — any  of  them — with  Scott's;  com- 
pare Lanier's,  or  Poe's  or  Moody's  with  Lowell's,  or  Bryant's 
or  Whittier's.  These  last  have  merits  of  other  sorts;  but 
the  devices  of  tone  manipulation  seem  to  have  been  used, 
when  at  all,  unconsciously  by  them. 

There  has  always  been  some  poetry  that  did  not  conform 
to  the  principles  outlined  above;  but  within  recent  years  the 
tendency  has  become  much  more  marked,  and  free  verse, 
as  it  is  called,  that  is,  verse  of  which  the  length  and  the 
accent  are  determined  by  the  content  and  not  restricted  by 
measure  or  by  rhyme  is  much  cultivated.  Into  the  merits 
and  possibilities  of  this  form,  this  is  not  the  place  to  enter. 
When  it  is  practised  by  a  genius  like  Walt  Whitman,  or  Ed- 
ward Carpenter,  it  acquires  a  magnificent  swing;  but  when 
it  is  written  by  people  who  find  the  difficulties  of  measured 
verse  beyond  them,  it  is  not  distinguishable  from  prose. 

ASSIGNMENT 

1.  The  following  passage  is  blank  verse  rearranged  without  alter- 
ing a  word.  Restore  it  to  the  correct  form,  and  mark  the  stresses. 


VERSE  403 

Show  where  word  accent,  emphasis  to  bring  out  meaning,  and  verse 
stress  coincide  and  where  they  diverge: 

For  he  seem'd  very  young,  reared  tenderly;  tall,  and  dark,  and 
straight,  like  some  young  cypress,  which,  by  midnight,  throws  on 
the  moonlit  turf  its  slight  dark  shadow  to  a  bubbling  fountain's 
sound,  in  a  queen's  secluded  garden. — Matthew  Arnold. 

2.  The  following  passage  is  rearranged  without  altering  a  word 
from  a  poem  in  rhyming  tetrameter  couplets.    Restore  the  original 
form  and  describe  it: 

Then  came  in  the  merry  maskers,  and  roared  carols  with  blithe- 
some din;  if  the  song  was  unmelodious,  it  was  a  strong  and  hearty 
note.  Who  lists  may  see  in  their  mumming  traces  of  ancient  mys- 
tery; white  skirts  supplied  the  masquerade,  and  smutted  cheeks 
made  the  visors:  But  oh  what  richly  dight  maskers  can  boast  of 
half  so  light  bosoms?  When  old  Christmas  brought  his  sports 
again,  England  was  merry  England. — Scott. 

3.  Turn  the  following  prose  into  blank  verse,  changing  the  words 
as  little  as  possible: 

Then  I  saw  in  my  dream,  that  when  they  were  got  out  of  the 
wilderness,  they  presently  saw  a  town  before  them,  and  the  name 
of  that  town  is  Vanity;  and  at  the  town  there  is  a  fair  kept,  called 
Vanity  Fair:  it  is  kept  all  the  year  long;  it  beareth  the  name  of 
Vanity  Fair,  because  the  town  where  it  is  kept  is  lighter  than  van- 
ity; and  also  because  all  that  is  there  sold,  or  that  cometh  thither, 
is  vanity.  As  is  the  saying  of  the  wise,  "All  that  cometh  is  vanity." 

— Bunyan. 

2.  THE  BALLAD 

The  ballad  was  to  the  people  in  the  Middle  Ages  what  the 
short  story  is  to-day.  It  was  usually  episodic  in  character; 
and  sometimes  there  grew  up  a  group  of  episodes  concerning 
the  same  characters,  as  in  the  Robin  Hood  Ballads. 

Before  you  try  your  hand  at  a  ballad,  let  us  study  the  form 
and  content  of  one  that  is  fairly  typical.  Note  first  of  all  the 
meter — a  four-lines  tanza,  consisting  alternately  of  four-and 
three-stress  lines,  of  which  only  the  second  and  fourth  rhyme. 
Ballads  are  written  in  other  meters,  but  this  is  the  com- 
monest: 


404  THE  WRITING  OF  ENGLISH 

SIB  PATRICK  SPENS 

The  king  sits  in  Dunfermling  toune, 

Drinking  the  blude-reid  wine: 
"O  whar  will  I  get  guid  sailor, 

To  sail  this  schip  of  mine?  " 

The  opening  lines  picture  the  situation  (in  some  ballads  the 
time  also  is  given,  as:  "It  befell  at  Martynmas").  Then  the 
plot  begins  to  move  with  an  abrupt  quotation  without  any 
word  to  show  who  the  speaker  is. 

Up  and  spak  an  eldern  knicht, 

Sat  at  the  king's  richt  kne: 
"Sir  Patrick  Spence  is  the  best  sailor, 

That  sails  upon  the  se." 

Here  the  first  line  shows  inversion  of  the  natural  sentence 
order;  and  the  phrasing  is  of  a  conventional  type  repeated 
again  and  again  in  the  various  ballads.  The  second  line 
omits  the  pronoun  subject — also  a  common  feature.  The 
third  and  fourth  lines  show  the  use  of  alliteration,  which  is 
very  common. 

The  king  has  written  a  braid  letter, 

And  signed  it  wi  his  hand, 
And  sent  it  to  Sir  Patrick  Spence, 

Was  walking  on  the  sand. 

Here  the  only  new  point  to  note  is  the  picturing  of  insignifi- 
cant details. 

The  first  line  that  Sir  Patrick  red, 

A  loud  lauch  lauched  he; 
The  next  line  that  Sir  Patrick  red, 

The  teir  blinded  his  ee. 

"O  wha  is  this  has  don  this  deid, 

This  ill  deid  don  to  me, 
To  send  me  out  this  time  o'  the  yeir, 

To  sail  upon  the  se 


VERSE  405 

In  the  first  stanza  we  have  an  alliterative  phrase;  and  the 
third  line  repeats  with  a  slight  variation  the  content  of  the 
first.  In  the  second  stanza,  the  first  line  is  exclamatory, 
introduced  by  0;  more,  the  speech  is  given  without  intro- 
ductory words.  These  are  all  common  ballad  features. 

"Mak  hast,  mak  haste,  my  mirry  men  all, 

Our  guid  schip  sails  the  morne:" 
"O  say  na  sae,  my  master  deir, 

For  I  feir  a  deadlie  storme. 

Here  we  have  the  repetition  of  a  phrase,  besides  the  allitera- 
tion in  the  first  line.  In  the  third  line,  we  find  a  change  of 
speaker,  without  any  indication  beyond  the  content  of  the 
spoken  words. 

"Late,  late  yestreen  I  saw  the  new  moone, 

Wi  the  auld  moone  in  hir  arme, 
And  I  feir,  I  feir,  my  deir  master, 

That  we  will  cum  to  harme." 

Here  we  have  a  different  ballad  feature — allusion  to  omens : 

O  our  Scots  nobles  wer  richt  laith 

To  weet  their  cork-heild  schoone; 
Bot  lang  owre  a'  the  play  were  playd, 

Thair  hats  they  swam  aboone. 

Note  the  exclamatory  form,  the  strong  contrast:  the  men 
who  were  loth  to  wet  the  heels  of  their  fine  shoes  swam  so 
deep  that  the  water  rose  above  their  hats;  that  is,  they  were 
drowned.  This  indirect  way  of  getting  over  an  event  by 
means  of  some  apparently  trivial  detail  which  suggests  the 
whole  is  also  characteristic  of  the  ballad. 

O  lang,  lang  may  their  ladies  sit, 
Wi  thair  fans  into  their  hand, 
Or  eir  they  se  Sir  Patrick  Spence 
Cum  sailing  to  the  land. 

Here  we  have  a  picture  again;  and  its  effectiveness  is  in- 
creased by  the  suggestive  contrast  between  the  trivial  de- 


406  THE  WRITING  OF  ENGLISH 

tail  and  the  sorrowful  state  of  mind.  The  alliteration  of  I  is 
very  pronounced. 

O  lang,  lang  may  the  ladies  stand, 

Wi  thair  gold  kerns  in  their  hair, 
Waiting  for  thair  ain  deir  lords, 

For  they'll  se  thame  na  mair. 

Haf  owre,  haf  owre  to  Aberdour, 

It's  fiftie  fadom  deip, 
And  thair  lies  guid  Sir  Patrick  Spence, 

Wi  the  Scots  lords  at  his  feit. 

Note  the  repetitions,  not  merely  within  the  stanza,  but  linking 
stanza  to  stanza.  In  the  last  two  stanzas,  the  only  new  points 
to  be  noted  are  the  definite  localization  of  the  disaster,  and 
the  use  of  numbers  in  measurement.  What  other  features 
do  you  find? 

Taking  the  ballad  as  a  whole,  observe  that  it  does  not  so 
much  relate  what  happened  as  give  the  accompanying  de- 
tails which  from  their  emotional  significance  suggest  what 
occurred.  Although  few  ballads  carry  suggestion  to  such  a 
degree  as  does  this  one,  they  all  have  a  tendency  to  depend 
upon  the  intuition  and  emotion  of  the  audience  to  fill  out 
the  story.  They  are  more  concerned  with  the  emotional 
effect  than  with  the  logic  of  the  presentation.  Sometimes 
one  or  more  refrains  occur — unrelated  or  meaningless  ex- 
pressions of  emotion,  as : 

"  Hey  lilelu  an  a  how  low  Ian 

An  it's  hey  down  down  deedle  airo." 

ASSIGNMENT 

1.  Collect  in  the  form  of  a  300-word  report  your  notes  on  the 
characteristics  of  the  ballad. 

2.  If  possible,  read  other  ballads   (Manly's  English  Prose  and 
Poetry,  pp.  74-84);  then  write  a  ballad  of  10  or  more  stanzas, 
trying  to  use  as  many  of  the  ballad  features  as  you  can.    Choose  for 


VERSE  407 

your  subject  some  familiar  old  story  or  character;  or  you  may 
use  one  of  the  following: 

The  Green  Knight  (Manly,  English  Prose  and  Poetry,  pp.  37-46, 
with  note) 

The  Death  of  Arthur  (ibid.,  pp.  84-86) 

The  Lady  of  the  Land  (ibid.,  pp.  31-32) 

The  Battle  of  Otterburn  (ibid.,  pp.  77-80),  writing  from  the 
women's  point  of  view. 

3.  COMMON  STANZA  FORMS 

Two  of  the  most  striking  stanzas  in  English  are  built  upon 
the  same  basis — the  eight-line  iambic  pentameter  stanza 
(ottava  rima),  rhyming  ababbcbc,  which  is  not  common. 
The  stanzas  based  upon  it  are:  rhyme  royal  (so  named 
from  King  James  I  of  Scotland  who  used  it),  which  drops  the 
seventh  line,  and  thus  has  the  rhyme  scheme  ababbcc;  and 
the  Spenserian  stanza  (named  from  Edmund  Spenser,  who 
invented  it  in  his  Faerie  Queene),  which  adds  a  ninth  line 
containing  six  iambic  feet — the  alexandrine — rhyming  with 
the  eighth  line,  thus  rhyming  ababbcbcc. 

There  are  two  ways  of  becoming  familiar  with  these 
stanzas:  one  is  to  read  much  verse  written  in  them;  the  other 
is  to  practise  writing  a  few  verses  in  each.  Among  the  famous 
poems  written  in  the  rhyme  royal  are:  Chaucer's  Troilus  and 
Cressida  and  William  Morris's  The  Lady  of  the  Land.  Among 
the  famous  poems  in  the  Spenserian  stanza  are  Spenser's 
Faerie  Queene,  Shelley's  Adonais,  and  Keats's  Eve  of  St. 
Agnes. 

ASSIGNMENT 

1.  Study  the  following  stanza  carefully,  and  write  the  prose  be- 
low it  in  the  same  form: 

"It  happened  once,  some  men  of  Italy 
Midst  the  Greek  Islands  went  a  sea-roving, 
And  much  good  fortune  had  they  on  the  sea: 
Of  many  a  man  they  had  the  ransoming, 
And  many  a  chain  they  gat,  and  goodly  thing; 


408  THE  WRITING  OF  ENGLISH 

And  midst  their  voyage  to  an  isle  they  came, 
Whereof  my  story  keepeth  not  the  name." 

— William  Morris. 

Thus  did  he  come  at  last  to  the  castle,  but  when  he  drew  near 
unto  the  gateway,  and  passed  underneath  its  ruined  archway  into 
a  court,  he  did  hear  a  strange  noise,  and  there  shot  a  pang  of  fear 
through  his  heart;  he,  trembling,  gat  into  his  hand  his  sword,  and 
took  his  stand  midmost  of  the  cloisters. 

2.  The  following  is  an  example  of  the  Spenserian  stanza.  Write 
the  prose  below  it  in  the  same  form: 

"    There  is  a  pleasure  in  the  pathless  woods, 
There  is  a  rapture  on  the  lonely  shore, 
There  is  society  where  none  intrudes, 
By  the  deep  Sea,  and  music  in  its  roar: 
I  love  not  man  the  less,  but  Nature  more, 
From  these  our  interviews,  from  which  I  steal 
From  all  I  may  be,  or  have  been  before, 
To  mingle  with  the  Universe,  and  feel 

What  I  can  ne'er  express,  yet  cannot  all  conceal." — Byron. 

Are  not  the  mountains,  waves,  and  skies,  a  part  of  me  and  of 
my  soul,  as  I  of  them?  Is  not  the  love  of  these  deep  in  my  heart 
with  a  pure  passion?  should  I  not  contemn  all  objects,  if  compared 
with  these?  and  stem  a  tide  of  suffering  rather  than  forego  such 
feelings  for  the  hard  and  worldly  phlegm  of  those  whose  eyes,  gazing 
upon  the  ground,  are  only  turned  below,  with  thoughts  which  dare 
not  glow? 

4.  THE  SONNET 

One  of  the  commonest  of  verse  forms  to-day  is  the  sonnet, 
which  was  borrowed  from  an  Italian  form  in  the  16th  century. 

It  consists  of  fourteen  lines  of  iambic  pentameter,  embody- 
ing a  single  main  thought  which  is  viewed  usually  from  two 
more  or  less  contrasted  aspects.  The  first  aspect  usually 
ends  with  the  eighth  line;  and  the  first  eight  lines  are  called 
the  octave,  while  the  last  six  lines  are  called  the  sestet. 

In  their  rhyme  schemes  sonnets  fall  into  two  main  groups, 
the  first  of  which  follow  the  Italian  form  more  closely,  while 
the  second  use  an  English  adaptation  of  it  made  in  the  16th 
century.  Milton  is  the  great  exponent  of  the  Italian  type. 


VERSE  409 

which  has  also  been  much  used  by  modern  sonneteers 
— Wordsworth,  the  Brownings,  the  Rossettis,  and  others; 
while  Shakespeare  is  the  chief  exponent  of  the  English  type. 

In  the  Italian  type,  the  octave  is  as  a  rule  rigid  in  structure, 
the  commonest  form  of  it  being  abbaabba,  containing  only 
two  rhymes,  while  the  sestet  shows  all  sorts  of  variations, 
containing  often,  however,  in  different  arrangements,  the 
rhymes  cde. 

The  English  type  falls  into  four  divisions:  three  qua- 
trains, and  a  concluding  couplet,  with  the  rhyme  scheme 
ababcdcdef ef gg.  There  are  some  variations ;  but  this  arrange- 
ment is  preponderant. 

Sonnets  are  easy  to  write,  partly  because  the  form  itself 
somewhat  definitely  limits  the  thought,  and  partly  because 
the  lines  are  long  enough  to  give  plenty  of  scope  for  expres- 
sion of  it.  Practice  in  sonnet  writing  is  especially  valuable 
for  fixing  the  attention  upon  the  problems  connected  with 
the  writing  of  verse. 

ASSIGNMENT 

1.  Study  the  following  sonnet  of  the  Italian  type,  and  then  con- 
vert, without  changing  a  word,  the  prose  below  it  into  a  sonnet  of 
the  same  type: 

Remember  me  when  I  am  gone  away, 

Gone  far  away  into  the  silent  land ; 

When  you  can  no  more  hold  me  by  the  hand, 
Nor  I  half  turn  to  go,  yet  turning  stay. 
Remember  me  when  no  more,  day  by  day, 

You  tell  me  of  our  future  that  you  planned: 

Only  remember  me;  you  understand 
It  will  be  late  to  counsel  then  or  pray. 
Yet  if  you  should  forget  me  for  a  while 

And  afterwards  remember,  do  not  grieve: 

For  if  the  darkness  and  corruption  leave 

A  vestige  of  the  thoughts  that  once  I  had, 
Better  by  far  you  should  forget  and  smile 

Than  that  you  should  remember  and  be  sad. 

— Christina  Rosseti. 


410  THE  WRITING  OF  ENGLISH 

A  flock  of  sheep  that  pass  by  leisurely,  one  after  one;  the  sound 
of  rain,  and  murmuring  bees;  the  fall  of  seas,  rivers,  and  winds; 
smooth  fields,  pure  sky,  and  white  sheets  of  water:  I  have  thought 
of  all  by  turns,  and  yet  do  lie  sleepless,  and  soon  must  hear  the 
small  birds'  melodies,  uttered  first  from  my  orchard  trees,  and 
the  first  cuckoo's  melancholy  cry. 

Even  thus  I  lay  last  night,  and  two  nights  more,  and  could  not 
by  any  stealth  win  thee,  Sleep!  Do  not  let  me  wear  tonight  away 
so.  What  is  all  the  morning's  wealth  without  Thee?  Come,  dear 
mother  of  joyous  health  and  fresh  thoughts,  blessed  barrier  between 
day  and  day! 

2.  Study  the  following  sonnet  of  the  English  type,  and  then 
change  the  prose  into  another  sonnet  of  the  same  form: 

"When,  in  disgrace  with  fortune  and  men's  eyes, 
I  all  alone  beweep  my  outcast  state 
And  trouble  deaf  heaven  with  my  bootless  cries 
And  look  upon  myself  and  curse  my  fate, 
Wishing  me  like  to  one  more  rich  in  hope, 
Featured  like  him,  like  him  with  friends  possess'd, 
Desiring  this  man's  art  and  that  man's  scope, 
With  what  I  most  enjoy  contented  least; 
Yet  in  these  thoughts  myself  almost  despising, 
Haply  I  think  on  thee,  and  then  my  state, 
Like  to  the  lark  at  break  of  day  arising 
From  sullen  earth,  sings  hymns  at  heaven's  gate; 
For  thy  sweet  love  remember'd  such  wealth  brings 
That  then  I  scorn  to  change  my  state  with  kings." 

— Shakespeare. 

When  I  am  dead  no  longer  mourn  for  me  than  you  shall  hear 
the  surly  sullen  bell  give  warning  to  the  world  that  I  am  fled  from 
this  vile  world,  to  dwell  with  vilest  worms:  Nay,  remember  not,  if 
you  read  this  line,  the  hand  that  writ  it;  for  I  love  you  so  that  I 
would  be  forgot  in  your  sweet  thoughts  if  thinking  on  me  then 
should  make  you  woe.  O,  if,  I  say,  when  I  am  perhaps  compounded 
with  clay,  you  look  upon  this  verse,  do  not  rehearse  so  much  as 
my  poor  name,  but  let  your  love  decay  even  with  my  life,  lest  after 
I  am  gone  the  wise  world  should  look  into  your  moan  and  mock  you 
with  me. 


APPENDIX 


APPENDIX 


GOOD  FORM  IN  WRITING 

Rules  for  Manuscript 

1.  Use  good,  unlined  paper,  8  x  11|  inches. 

2.  Never  roll  the  sheets,  and  never  fasten  them  together 
except  with  a  detachable  metal  clip. 

Send  manuscript,  folded  only  once  or  not  at  all,  in  strong 
manila  paper  envelopes,  with  postage  to  cover  its  return. 

3.  Place  your  full  address  at  both  the  beginning  and  the 
end  of  the  manuscript. 

4.  Write  the  title  in  capitals  at  the  top  of  the  first  page. 
Do  not  quote  or  underline  the  title. 

5.  Number  the  pages   in  arabic  numerals.     Additional 
pages,  after  the  paper  is  finished,  may  be  inserted  by  num- 
bering them  la,  2a,  2b,  etc. 

6.  Write  on  one  side  of  the  sheet  only. 

7.  Typewrite  if  possible.    If  not,  take  great  pains  to  write 
legibly  (cf.  §  42). 

8.  Footnotes  should  be  inserted  on  the  page  immediately 
after  the  word  or  passage  to  which  they  refer,  and  this  should 
be  marked  with  an  index  number. 

Draw  lines  above  and  below  the  note  to  separate  it  from 
the  body  of  the  text.  In  typewriting  use  single  spacing  for 
notes.  Thus: 

had  a  goose  for  his  ensign,  whence  it  is  that  some  learned  men 
pretend  to  deduce  his  original  from  Jupiter  Capitolinus.1    At  his  left 

1  alluding  to  the  story  that  Rome  was  saved  by  the  cackling  of  geese 

9.  A  translation  or  short  explanation,  as  in  §  8,  may  be 

413 


414  APPENDIX  I 

given  without  capitals  or  punctuation;  but  a  long  note  fol- 
lows the  usual  rules. 

10.  References  should  be  given  in  as  brief  form  as  is 
consistent  with  perfect  clearness: 

Cf.  Genesis,  iv:21.     Cf.  Hamlet,  HI,  ii.  Iff. 

11.  In  repeating  immediately  a  reference  to  a  book,  the 
abbreviation  ibid,  (in  the  same  place)  is  used: 

The  Works  of  Geoffrey  Chaucer,  ed.  Skeat,  I,  24. 
Ibid.,  p.  35. 

If,  however,  another  title  intervenes,  ibid,  cannot  be  used, 
as  it  always  means  "  the  same  reference  as  that  immediately 
preceding." 

The  repetition  of  a  long  title  is  avoided  by  the  abbrevia- 
tion op.  cit.  (work  cited)  with  the  author's  name  and  the 
page  reference,  thus: 

Gibbon's  Decline  and  Fall  of  the  Roman  Empire,  I,  276. 
Gibbon,  op.  cit.,  II,  115. 

But  such  reference  must  never  be  made  unless  the  title  has 
been  given  in  full  earlier,  and  unless  the  reference  is  un- 
ambiguous. 

12.  An  article  or  a  periodical  can  be  referred  to  briefly 
by  means  of  loc.  cit.  (the  place  cited),  if  the  name  has  recently 
been  given  in  full: 

Modern  Philology,  VI,  297. 
Loc.  cit.,  299. 

13.  Observe  that  when  a  volume  number  is  necessary,  it 
should  be  in  Roman  numerals.    After  such  a  numeral,  the 
page  number  is  sufficient,  without  the  abbreviation  p.  for 
page.    But  when  there  is  no  volume  number,  p.  should  be 
used: 

Op.  cit.,  p.  289. 

For  abbreviations  to  be  used  in  footnotes,  cf.  §  132. 

14.  Leave  margins  as  follows: 

(1)  Below  the  title  at  least  an  inch. 


GOOD  FORM  415 

(2)  On  the  left,  from  half  an  inch  to  an  inch  and  a  half. 
More  is  needed  for  large  writing  than  for  small. 

(3)  On  the  right,  enough  to  keep  the  letters  from  crowding 
to  the  edge  of  the  page. 

(4)  At  the  bottom,  and  at  the  top  of  each  page  after  the 
first,  enough  to  avoid  the  appearance  of  crowding. 

(5)  At  the  beginning  of  each  paragraph,  enough  inden- 
tion (half  an  inch  or  so)  to  make  the  paragraphing  appear 
at  a  glance. 

In  general,  train  your  eye  by  observation  and  experiment 
until  you  have  a  sense  of  good  proportion  in  this  respect. 

15.  In  quoting  verse,  try  to  place  your  lines  so  that  they 
will  not  have  to  be  carried  over.    When,  however,  carrying 
over  is  unavoidable,  indent  your  left-over  part  further  to 
the  right  than  the  margin  for  the  beginning  of  each  line; 
and  see  that  your  practice  is  uniform. 

16.  For  blank  verse  and  couplets  the  margin  is  everywhere 
the  same  except  at  the  beginning  of  a  paragraph. 

In  quoting  irregular  forms  of  verse,  follow  the  author's 
practice  in  regard  to  indention. 

17.  Outlines  are  subject  to  the  same  rules  as  verse:  see  15, 
above. 

Rules  for  Personal  Letters 

18.  Exercise  judgment  and  care  in  regard  to  mechanical 
details.     Use  good,   unlined  paper,  5  x  6|  inches,  white, 
cream,  or  neutral  tinted;  and  envelopes  that  fit  and  match 
the  paper. 

Avoid,  as  you  would  the  plague,  gilt  edges,  stamped  in- 
itials and  other  ornaments,  and  perfume. 

Write  with  good  blue  or  black  ink,  and  a  pen  that  does 
not  dig  holes  in  the  paper. 

Pencil  should  never  be  used  if  ink  is  procurable. 

19.  The  heading  of  a  letter  should  include  the  full  post- 
office  address  and  date. 

20.  Names  of  streets,  towns,  states,  and  countries  should 
be  spelled  out  in  full  except  when  they  are  very  long,  as 
D.  C.,  U.  S.  A.,  etc. 


416  APPENDIX  I 

21.  A  house  number  should  be  given  in  numerals,  but  a 
number  used  for  a  street  should  be  spelled  out  unless  it  is 
very  long — above  one  hundred,  for  instance. 

22.  The  day  of  the  month  and  the  year  should  be  given 
in  numerals.    It  is  no  longer  customary  to  add  -st,  -nd,  -rd, 
-th,  to  the  number  of  the  day. 

23.  The  heading  should  begin  to  the  right  of  the  center 
of  the  page,  and  each  line  should  be  further  to  the  right 
than  the  one  above,  thus : 

119a  East  Ward  Street 
New  York  City 
June  6,  1918 

16  Chestnut  Boulevard 
Seattle,  Washington 
July  1, 1918 

Observe  that  the  only  punctuation  used  is  a  comma  between 
the  names  of  town  and  state,  and  between  the  day  of  the 
month  and  the  year.  This  is  the  best  modern  usage. 

24.  In  an  informal  note  to  a  friend  the  heading  may 
be  omitted,  with  the  exception  of  the  date,  which,  in  this 
event,  should  be  at  the  end  and  to  the  left  of  the  signature. 
In  fact,  in  intimate  personal  letters  a  large  amount  of  devia- 
tion from  the  usual  customs  of  good  form  is  indulged  in  even 
by  the  most  cultivated  writers;  but  the  beginner  who  allows 
himself  much  liberty  in  this  respect  runs  the  risk  of  estab- 
lishing careless  habits  which  he  is  likely  to  carry  over  into 
formal  writing. 

25.  In  the  greeting,  note  that  My  dear  Mr.  Smith  is  more 
formal  than  Dear  Mr.  Smith.    The  greeting  should  always 
be  followed  by  a  comma  only,  never  by  comma  and  dash, 
semicolon,  or  colon  and  dash. 

26.  The  pages  should  be  covered  as  they  come  when  the 
paper  lies  with  the  folded  edge  at  the  left. 

Do  not  write  on  the  fourth  page  until  the  second  and  third 
pages  have  been  covered;  do  not  begin  with  the  fourth  page; 
and  when  you  know  that  your  letter  will  cover  more  than 
one  page  but  less  than  two,  write  on  the  first  and  third  pages. 


GOOD  FORM  417 

27.  It  is  not  necessary  to  number  the  pages;  but  if  more 
than  one  sheet  is  covered,  the  sheets  should  be  numbered. 

28.  Do  not  write  lengthwise  of  any  of  the  pages.    Do  not 
write  in  the  margin,  or  above  the  heading.     Never  cross 
your  writing. 

29.  The  close  may  be  an  adverb  followed  or  preceded 
by  yours,  which  is  punctuated  with  a  comma   (Sincerely 
yours,)  or   Your  followed  by  an  adjective,  which  is  used 
without  a  comma  (Your  loving). 

It  is  not  good  form  to  use  an  adverb  alone  (Sincerely). 

30.  The  signature  should  not  be  followed  by  a  period. 

31.  Envelopes  should  be  addressed  without  punctuation 
except  for  abbreviations. 

The  lines  may  be  written  keeping  the  same  margin  at  the 
left,  or  progressing  gradually  to  the  right.  The  former 
method  is  the  newer. 

32.  Avoid  the  following: 
No.  before  a  street  number 
P.  0.  before  Box 

City  for  the  name  of  the  city 
To  unless  the  address  begins  with  The 
Cfo  for  Care  of 

The  use  of  a  man's  title  in  addressing  his  wife,  as:  Mrs.  Dr. 
Smith. 

Formal  Letters 

33.  These  have  become  almost  stereotyped.    The  follow- 
ing may  be  adapted  to  any  social  occasion: 

FORMAL  INVITATION 

Miss  Eleanor  Beecher  requests  the  pleasure  of  Miss  Janet  Taylor's 
company  at  luncheon  on  Friday,  May  twentieth,  at  half-past  one 
o'clock,  to  meet  Miss  Jane  Cunningham. 

Please  reply. 
52  Scott  Street. 

ACCEPTANCE 

Miss  Janet  Taylor  accepts  with  pleasure  Miss  Beecher's  kind 
invitation  to  meet  Miss  Cunningham  at  luncheon  on  Friday,  May 
twentieth,  at  half-past  one  o'clock. 
Eighty-two  Division  Street. 


418  APPENDIX  I 

DECLINATION 

Miss  Janet  Taylor  regrets  that  a  previous  engagement  prevents 
her  acceptance  of  Miss  Beecher's  kind  invitation  to  luncheon  on 
Friday,  May  twentieth. 
Eighty- two  Division  St., 

May  tenth. 

A  reply  to  an  invitation  issued  by  two  people  jointly, 
should  be  addressed  to  the  senior;  or  if  by  husband  and  wife, 
to  the  wife. 

Observe  that  in  an  acceptance  the  hour  of  the  event  to 
which  the  invitation  refers  should  be  stated.  In  declining 
an  invitation,  it  is  not  necessary  to  mention  the  hour. 

Rules  for  Business  Letters 

34.  Rules,  1,  5,  6,  7,  and  14,  (2)-(5),  under  Manuscript, 
and  19-23,  and  30-32,  under  Personal  Letters  apply  to  Busi- 
ness Letters  also. 

35.  Place   immediately   above  the  greeting  your  corre- 
spondent's full  address,  thus: 

(1)  Square  (2)  En  Echelon 

Mr.  G.  A.  Adams  Or:  Mr.  G.  A.  Adams 
Hyde  Building  Hyde  Building 

Omaha,  Nebraska.  Omaha,  Nebraska. 

Dear  Sir:  Dear  Sir: 

The  lines  may  be  arranged  with  equal  indention,  as  in  (1),  or 
indented  progressively  toward  the  right,  as  in  (2).  The 
former  is  the  newer  way. 

36.  A  period  should  be  placed  at  the  end  of  the  address; 
and  the  simplest  punctuation  after  the  greeting  is  the  colon, 
which  is  to  be  preferred  to  the  comma  as  being  more  formal. 

37.  The  preferred  forms  of  greeting  for  business  letters 
are:  Dear  Sir;  Dear  Madam;  Gentlemen  or  Dear  Sirs;  and 
Mesdames. 

Under  no  circumstances  should  such  forms  as  Dear  Friend; 
Dear  Miss;  Friend  Perkins;  Mess.;  Gents  be  used. 

38.  For  a  stranger  the  best  form  of  close  is:  Yours  very 
truly,  or  Very  truly  yours.    For  a  business  letter  to  an  ac- 
quaintance, or  even  a  friend,  the  usual  close  is  Sincerely 


GOOD  FORM  419 

yours.     Respectfully  is  to  be  avoided.     /  remain  implies 

(previous  acquaintance. 
39.  A  married  woman  writing  to  a  stranger  should  always 
sign  herself  in  the  form  given  below: 

Winifred  M.  Ewart  (Mrs.  J.  H.). 

It  is  not  necessary  for  an  unmarried  woman  to  write  (Miss) 
after  her  name;  but  she  should  always  spell  out  her  Christian 
name  instead  of  using  merely  initials. 

40.  A  business  letter  to  a  friend  should  observe  all  the 
formalities  used  in  any  business  letter  if  it  is  to  be  placed  on 
file  where  it  may  be  read  by  strangers. 

41.  Fold  business  letters  as  follows:  If  there  are  two  or 
more  pages,  place  them  so  that  the  edges  are  even;  holding 
them  firmly,  bring  the  bottom  edges  up  even  with  the  top 
edges,  and  crease  the  middle  sharply;  turn  the  crease  to  the 
left,  fold  the  edge  nearest  you  back  to  about  two-thirds  the 
height  of  the  paper,  and  bring  the  top  edge  toward  you,  creas- 
ing neatly  each  time. 

Place  the  folded  sheets  in  the  evelope  with  the  opening 
of  the  last  fold  toward  the  opening  of  the  envelope. 

Penmanship 

42.  Illegibility  is  not  a  mark  of  distinction;  in  a  young 
person  sound  in  body  and  in  mind  it  is  merely  indicative 
of  carelessness  and  lack  of  courtesy.     The  following  hints 
may  help  you : 

(1)  Aim  to  normalize  your  writing  in  size.     Both  large 
and  small  writing  try  the  eyes  and  the  patience  of  the  reader. 

(2)  Leave  spaces  equivalent  to  at  least  two  letters  be- 
tween words;  more  between  sentences  within  the  paragraph, 
but  never  more  than  twice  as  much  as  between  words.    Never 
leave  half  a  line  vacant  after  a  sentence  and  begin  the  next 
sentence  at  the  margin. 

(3)  Keep  your  lines  far  enough  apart  to  prevent  the  long 
strokes  of  the  letters  from  crossing. 

(4)  Never  connect  words  or  fail  to  connect  all  the  letters 
of  one  word. 


420  APPENDIX  II 

(5)  Keep  punctuation  marks  distinct  from  the  letters: 
dot  all  i's  and  j's,  and  cross  all  t's  and  x's. 

(6)  Write  with  unusual  care  all  letters  which  are  easily 
confused  with  others,  as  n  and  u,  a  and  o,  h  and  k. 

(7)  Take  special  care  with  all  proper  names. 

(8)  It  is  bad  taste  to  use  unnecessary  strokes  or  flourishes, 
or  shading,  or  to  give  your  letters  eccentric  forms. 


II 

• 
NOTE-TAKING 

Library  Notes 

43.  MATERIALS:  (1)  Packets  of  cards  or  blocks  of  paper 
always  of  the  same  size.    Library  index  cards  (3x5  inches) 
or  blocks  of  that  size  are  convenient.    If  you  use  the  paper 
blocks,  the  backs  will  support  your  pages.    The  cards  are 
better,  but  the  paper  is  much  cheaper. 

(2)  Cards  or  paper  of  several  different  colors  to  be  used 
for  guides  to  different  subjects  or  phases  of  a  subject. 

(3)  Elastic  bands  for  holding  your  cards  together  until 
they  are  filed. 

(4)  Library  Index  boxes.    Library  boxes  (6  x  11  inches) 
may  be  bought  at  small  cost;  or  shoe  boxes  will  serve  the 
purpose.     If  you  keep  notes  on  more  than  one  subject 
in  the  same  box,  you  should  not  fail  to  use  guide  cards, 
alphabetically  or  systematically  arranged. 

44.  METHODS:  (1)  Write  on  one  side  of  the  card  only. 

(2)  Choose  whether  you  will  write  the  long  way  or  the 
short  way  of  the  card;  and  stick  to  your  choice.    The  long 
way  is  better  because  it  enables  you  to  read  a  card  without 
removing  it  from  the  index  box. 

(3)  Write  legibly. 

(4)  Leave  generous  spaces.     You  will  save  time  by  so 
doing. 

(5)  Write  the  subject  in  the  upper  left-hand  corner  of 
the  card. 


NOTE-TAKING  421 

(6)  Put  only  one  point  on  a  card. 

(7)  If  a  point  is  too  long  for  one  card,  cany  the  heading 
over  to  a  second  card,  and  number  the  second  card. 

(8)  Give  the  authority  for  each  fact  on  the  same  card 
with  it. 

(9)  Make  every  reference  so  complete  that  you  can 
turn  without  delay  to  the  place.     The  reference  should 
include: 

Author's  name;  with  Christian  name  or  initials,  if  the 
surname  is  common  or  belongs  to  more  than  one  well-known 
author. 

Full  title,  though  the  words  may  be  abbreviated. 

Date  of  edition;  page  numbers  vary  in  different  editions. 

Volume  number  in  Roman  numerals. 

Page  number. 

Note  Card 


Art,  Shakespeare's  knowledge  of 

Lucrece  1366-1561  perh.  sugg.  by  Fr. 
or  Flem.  tapestries,  ab.  1480-1500. 

See  S.  Colvin,  in  A  Book  of  Homage  to 
Shakesp.,  ed.  I.  Gollancz,  London,  1916, 
p.  99. 


(10)  When  you  quote,  quote  exactly,  inserting  capitals,, 
italics,  punctuation,  just  as  they  stand  in  the  text;  and 
never  by  any  chance  omit  quotation  marks. 

(11)  When  you  are  summarizing  the  ideas  of  a  passage, 
you  can  save  space  in  two  ways:  (1)  by  omitting  articles, 
copulas,  connectives,  and  in  general  words  that  are  struc- 
tural in  function  and  contribute  nothing  to  the  ideas;  and 
(2)    by   abbreviating  and   contracting   words   that   occur 
frequently,  as,  for  example:  hist[ory];  Rom[an]  Emp[ire]; 
M[iddle]  Afges];  feudalism];  H'y  8;  Kath[erine]  of  Ar[agon} 
parl't;  literature] ;  etc.,  etc.     In  short,  practice  abbrevia- 


422 


APPENDIX  II 


tion  wherever  you  can  without  loss  of  clearness,  but  bear 
in  mind  that  an  abbreviation  that  is  easily  intelligible 
when  you  make  it  may  become  uncertain  and  unintelligible 
in  a  year. 

You  should  make  your  own  system  and  stick  to  it. 

(12)  If  you  do  not  wish  to  quote,  and  still  find  it  difficult 
to  get  away  from  the  words  of  your  authority,  close  your 
book  and   make  notes  from  memory;  then  verify  your 
statements  by  comparison. 

(13)  Unless  the  quotation  is  either  more  condensed  or 
to  a  marked  degree  more  effective  than  your  own  wording, 
take  the  gist  of  a  statement  rather  than  an  exact  transcript. 

(14)  In  making  a  bibliography,  write  only  one  title  on  a 
card;  and  give  complete  information,  thus:  (a)  Author's 
full  name;  (b)  complete  title;  (c)  name  of  series,  if  the  work 
belongs  to  a  series,  or  name  of  publication,  if  it  is  part  of  a 
larger  work  or  of  a  periodical;  (d)  publisher's  name;  (e) 
place  or  places  of  publication;  (f)  date  of  publication. 

Bibliography  Card 


Wheatley,  Henry  B. 

How  to  Make  an  Index 

pp.  xii+236 
(The  Book  Lover's  Library) 

Elliot  Stock, 
London, 1902 


Class  Notes 

45.  MATERIALS:  (1)  Use  a  loose-leaved  notebook,  as  this 
gives  greater  flexibility  in  omitting  and  adding  to  your 
material. 

(2)  Write  in  ink.     Pencil  rubs  and  becomes  untidy  and 
indistinct. 

46.  METHODS:   (1)  Leave  generous  spaces,  so  that  you 
can  see  at  a  glance  the  content  of  a  page. 

(2)  Make  your  notes  reproduce  the  outline  of  the  lee- 


NOTE-TAKING  423 

ture  as  far  as  possible.     Listen  for  the  statement  of  heads 
and  subheads — the  topic  sentences  of  paragraphs. 

(3)  Note  with  extreme  care  all  references,  as  these  will 
help  you  to  fill  out  your  outline. 

(4)  Omit  anecdotes,  and  detailed  illustrations.     These 
tend  to  clog  the  main  line  of  thought. 

(5)  Write  all  names  and  dates  with  great  care. 

(6)  Make  your  own  system  of  abbreviation  for  words, 
and  stick  to  it.     See  44  (11).     It  is  a  good  plan  to  have  a 
key  of  your  abbreviations  in  the  front  of  your  notebook, 
for  reference  in  case  of  doubt  as  to  your  meaning. 

(7)  Learn  to  omit  the  unimportant  words  in  the  sen- 
tence; that  is,  words  readily  supplied  from  the  context, 
such  as:  articles  and  demonstrative  adjectives,  the  copula, 
adverbs,  and  non-essential  adjectives. 

47.  Try  to  make  your  notes  progressive  in  value.  Mere 
practice  is  not  enough  for  success  in  this  direction;  attention 
and  ingenuity  in  devising  better  individual  methods, 
adapted  to  each  subject,  are  necessary.  The  habit  of 
taking  a  few  notes  that  will  suggest  and  bring  before  the 
mind  the  whole  substance  of  a  lecture  is  well  worth  while; 
but  the  practice  of  setting  down  a  number  of  stray  sen- 
tences that  mean  little  or  nothing  when  they  are  read 
afterward  is  obviously  a  waste  of  time.  Unless  you  can 
learn  to  take  notes  properly,  it  is  better  to  train  your 
memory  to  carry  the  lecture  as  a  whole,  and  then  try  to 
write  a  digest  of  it  after  you  leave  the  classroom;  but  this 
process  is  more  difficult  for  the  beginner  than  taking  notes 
in  class. 


Ill 
CAPITALS  AND  ITALICS 

48.  Capital  letters  and  italic  type  are  two  means  com- 
monly used  by  printers  to  help  bring  out  the  exact  meaning 
of  written  language.  In  this  respect  they  are  like  punctua- 
tion. There  are  two  ways  to  learn  to  use  capitals  and 


424  APPENDIX  III 

italics  properly,  just  as  there  are  two  ways  to  learn  punctua- 
tion: one  is  to  memorize  a  large  number  of  detailed  rules 
and  examples;  the  other  and  better  way  is  to  understand 
the  real  meaning  of  a  few  principles  and  apply  them  with 
ordinary  intelligence. 

Capitals 

49.  Capitals  are  used  for  two  fundamental  purposes: 
(1)  to  indicate  the  beginning  of  a  thought-unit  that  is  to  be 
marked  off  as  in  some  way  independent,  separated  from 
what  precedes  it;  (2)  to  indicate  a  personal  name  or  the 
equivalent  of  one. 

I.  CAPITALS  TO  MARK  BEGINNINGS  OF  THOUGHT-UNITS 

50.  Capitalize  the  first  word  of  every  sentence,  direct, 
or  quoted,  or  standing  alone  in  parenthesis: 

He  asked,  "Who  did  this?" 
Charles.    (He  speaks  slowly.)  Ma-ry! 

51.  But  do  not  capitalize  the  first  word  of  a  parenthetical 
sentence  that  is  thrust  into  another  sentence: 

There  was  a  loud  noise  (never  have  I  heard  anything  so  terrify- 
ing) in  the  next  room. 

52.  Do  not  capitalize  the  first  word  of  any  clause  of  an 
interrogative  compound  sentence  except  the  first: 

Who  will  feed  them?  and  who  will  clothe  them?  and  who  will 
pay  the  rent? 

53.  Do  not  capitalize  the  first  word  of  a  quotation  that 
is  not  a  sentence. 

These  are  "winged  words,"  in  a  sense  never  dreamed  of  by  Homer. 

54.  Capitalize  the  first  word  after  a  colon  when  it  in- 
troduces a  complete  passage  or  a  sentence  not  closely  con- 
nected with  what  precedes: 

In  conclusion,  I  wish  to  say  this :  These  illustrations  are  all  typical, 
not  exceptional,  cases. 


CAPITALS  AND  ITALICS  425 

55.  The  expressions  as  follows,  namely,  to  wit,  and  thus 
and  as  used  in  the  same  sense,  are  always  followed  by  the 
colon,  and  usually  they  set  off  what  follows  from  what 
precedes  the  colon  so  distinctly  that  a  capital  is  needed  to 
begin  the  sentence  after  the  colon. 

56.  Capitalize  the  first  word  in  sections  of  an  enumera- 
tion, if  any  member  contains  two  or  more  clauses  sep- 
arated by  a  semicolon  or  comma: 

My  reasons  for  going  are  these:  (1)  My  friends  want  me  to  come, 
and  this  is  my  only  chance  of  seeing  Clara  for  many  years;  (2)  It 
seems  possible  to  get  the  money  now;  (3)  My  health  will  be  im- 
mensely improved  by  the  trip;  and  (4)  There  should  be  in  Kashmir 
much  new  and  interesting  material  for  a  book. 

57.  Do  not  capitalize  short  items — words  or  phrases — 
of  an  informal  enumeration: 

This  is  my  daily  program:  rise  at  seven;  breakfast  at  eight;  work 
till  one  .  .  . 

58.  In  any  itemized  list  paragraphed  separately,  as  in 
an  order  for  merchandise,  capitalize  the  first  word  of  each 
item: 

Gentlemen: 

Please  send  me  the  following  articles: 
Ten  yards  of  ribbon  to  match  sample 
Five  yards  of  silk 
One  pair  of  white  glace"  kid  gloves,  size  6^ 

59.  In  resolutions,  capitalize  the  first  word  after  Whereas 
and  Resolved,  and  the  first  word  in  each  new  paragraph  or 
section,  whether  the  introductory  word  is  repeated,  or  not: 

Resolved,  That  the  Illinois  Congress  of  Mothers  urges  more  simple 
living,  in  order  that  the  fathers  may  have  the  opportunity  to  enjoy 
the  full  measure  of  their  privileges  and  responsibilities  in  regard 
to  their  children. 

That  we  recommend  simplicity  and  inexpensive  dressing  for 
schoolgirls  of  all  ages,  and  inasmuch  as  precept  is  more  effective 
if  accompanied  by  example,  we  strongly  urge  upon  mothers  to 
avoid  extreme  styles  and  adopt  for  themselves  a  simple,  modest, 
and  becoming  style  of  dress. 


426  APPENDIX  HI 

60.  Capitalize  the  first  word  of  every  line  of  verse. 

61.  Capitalize  the  first  word  in  the  salutation  of  a  letter: 

Dear  Emma;  My  dear  Fred 

II.  CAPITALS  FOB  PROPER  NAMES 

62.  Capitalize  proper  names  of  all  persons   (human  or 
divine),  places,  and  things,  or  any  words  used  as  such: 

Henry  Jones;  Jupiter;  Vishnu;  Eclipse  (a  horse);  Australia;  the 
Massachusetts  General  Court;  Bunker  Hill  Monument;  the  White 
Star  Line;  the  Bay  of  Fundy;  the  Finance  Committee;  Lower 
California;  Broad  Street  Station;  Rhode  Island  Avenue;  the  United 
States  Army;  Cook  County;  the  Seventh  Ward;  a  Social  Democrat; 
the  Fifth  Avenue  Church. 

63.  Fanciful  and  informal  or  popular  appellations  are 
treated  as  real  names: 

the  Keystone  State;  the  Windy  City;  the  Hub;  the  Monument; 
the  White  House;  the  Pension  Office  (for  the  Bureau  of  Pensions); 
the  Army;  the  Government;  the  Treasury;  the  South;  the  Middle 
West;  the  French  Revolution;  the  Renaissance;  the  Age  of  Eliza- 
beth; the  Thirty  Years'  War;  the  Battle  of  the  Marne;  the  Old 
World;  the  Reformers;  the  Falls  (meaning  Niagara,  for  example). 

64.  The  names  of  the  months  and  the  days  of  the  week 
and  of  civic  holidays  and   special  days  of  historical   or 
ecclesiastic  significance  are  treated  as  proper  names;  the 
names  of  the  seasons  are  not: 

July;  Monday;  Labor  Day;  Washington's  Birthday;  Ash  Wednes- 
day; the  Feast  of  Tabernacles;  Pentecost;  Valentine's  Day;  April 
Fools'  Day;  but  spring;  summer;  autumn;  winter. 

65.  Abstract  nouns  are  logically  proper  nouns,  but  they 
are  capitalized  only  when  personified: 

a  child  of  Nature;  Vice  is  a  monster. 

66.  Do  not  capitalize  words  merely  added  to  a  specific 
name  and  not  forming  a  real  part  of  it  or  words  that  express 
a  general  or  a  descriptive  designation  as  distinguished  from 
a  specific  name: 

the  river  Rhine;  the  lower  Mississippi;  the  empire  of  Japan; 
the  state  legislature;  the  committee;  the  department;  the  army 


CAPITALS  AND  ITALICS  427 

and  navy  of  Great  Britain;  the  college  at  Watertown;  a  true  demo- 
crat; five  Baptist  churches;  a  Utopia;  a  philistine;  a  bohemian; 
morocco  (leather);  ampere;  ohm;  kilowatt. 

67.  Capitalize  all  terms  used  to  designate  the  Supreme 
Being  or  Power  or  the  Persons  of  the  Christian  Trinity: 

the  Absolute;  the  Almighty;  the  First  Cause;  the  Ruler  of  the 
universe;  the  Holy  Spirit;  the  Son;  the  Messiah;  the  Logos;  the 
Word. 

68.  Capitalize  personal  pronouns  referring  to   God  or 
Christ  only  when  used  without  an  expressed  antecedent: 

Worship  His  name  in  the  beauty  of  holiness;  Trust  Him  who 
ruleth  all  things;  Suffer  the  little  children,  and  forbid  them  not 
to  come  unto  Me. 

But:  And  God  called  the  light  Day,  and  the  darkness  he  called 
Night. 

69.  Capitalize  titles  of  office,  of  honor,  or  of  courtesy 
when  used  as  part  of  a  name  or  as  a  substitute  for  a  name; 
but  not  when  merely  explanatory  or  descriptive: 

President  Wilson;  the  Archbishop  of  Canterbury;  the  Com- 
mander in  Chief;  Chevalier  Ferrata;  Baron  Tennyson;  Sir  Walter 
Raleigh;  Doctor  Green;  His  Excellency;  You  will  go,  Major,  to 
New  York. 

But:  Woodrow  Wilson,  president  of  the  United  States;  the  suc- 
cession of  archbishops  of  Canterbury;  the  doctor;  the  king  of  Eng- 
land is  a  hereditary  monarch. 

70.  Capitalize  names  of  kinship  when  used  in  address 
or  as  substitutes  for  proper  nouns: 

Come  here,  Sister;  I  knew  Mother  would  approve.  But:  Have 
you  seen  my  sister  or  my  mother? 

71.  Capitalize  the  first  word  and  all  the  principal  words 
in  titles '  of  books   and  literary  articles,   documents  and 
manuscripts,  plays,  and  pictures: 

The  Strange  Case  of  Dr.  Jekyll  and  Mr.  Hyde;  How  the  Other 
Half  Lives;  Senate  Document  No.  2;  the  Codex  Aureus. 

72.  Capitalize  the  article  (a,  an,  or  the)  at  the  beginning 
of  a  name  or  title  only  when  it  forms  an  integral  part  of 
the  name  or  title: 


428  APPENDIX  III 

The  Hague;  The  Bronx;  Shakespeare's  A  Midsummer  Night's 
Dream;  Kipling's  An  Habitation  Enforced;  Hawthorne's  The  House 
of  the  Seven  Gables. 

72a.  But  it  is  not  customary  to  capitalize  the  article  be- 
ginning the  name  of  a  newspaper  or  magazine: 

the  Chicago  Tribune;  the  Springfield  Republican;  the  San  Fran- 
cisco Call;  the  Outlook;  the  Literary  Digest. 

73.  Capitalize  the  trade  names  of  articles  of  commerce, 
but  not  the  noun  which  names  the  class  to  which  each  be- 
longs: 

Quaker  Oats;  Shredded  Wheat;  Puffed  Rice;  but  the  Oliver 
typewriter;  Pears'  soap;  the  Star  pencil. 

74.  Capitalize    adjectives    derived    from   proper   nouns 
if  the  original  relation  to  the  noun  is  still  maintained: 

Italian  painting;  Indian  pottery;  but  india  rubber;  india  ink; 
lyonnaise  potatoes;  navy  beans;  pasteurized  milk;  a  bohemian 
cafe";  timothy  hay. 

75.  Prepositions  and  articles  in  foreign  proper  names 
are  not  to  be  capitalized  when  preceded  by  a  Christian 
name  or  a  title: 

the  Count  de  la  Rochefoucauld;  the  Duke  d'Abruzzi. 

But  the  first  of  them  is  capitalized  if  they  stand  without 
a  Christian  name  or  title: 

La  Rochefoucauld;  De  la  Torre. 

76.  Capitalize  the  single  letter  words  I  and  O: 
Then  I  said:  "I  cannot  tell,  O  King,  if  this  be  true." 

Italics 

77.  Usage  is  less  definitely  settled  in  regard  to  italics 
than  in  regard  to  punctuation,  capitalization,  or  spelling. 
Daily  newspapers  and  most  popular — that  is,  non-techni- 
cal— periodicals  use   italics    not   at  all  or  rarely.     Each 
publication  has  its  own  "  style,"  or  rules  of  usage,  which 
can  easily  be  learned  by  anyone  who  needs  to  know  it. 


CAPITALS  AND  ITALICS  429 

Most  technical  periodicals  also  have  special  rules  based 
upon  the  supposed  requirements  of  the  subjects  treated. 

The  following  are  some  general  rules  followed  by  high 
class  publishers : 

78.  Italicize  titles  of  separate  publications  of  any  form 
of  writing,  when  used  in  the  body  of  the  text,  or  in  foot- 
notes.   This  includes  books,  pamphlets  of  all  kinds,  periodi- 
cals and  newspapers.  Names  of  musical  compositions  and 
works  of  art  follow  the  same  rule: 

Carpenter,  The  Art  of  Creation;  All's  Well  that  Ends  Well;  The 
Faerie  Queene;  Proceedings  of  the  Modern  Language  Association; 
Report  of  the  United  States  Commissioner  of  Education;  Chopin's 
Berceuse;  Rembrandt's  Last  Supper;  Whistler's  Peacock  Room. 

79.  Italicize  the  or  a  when  it  forms  part  of  a  title;  but  do 
not  italicize  the  name  of  the  city  or  the  word  the  in  the 
title  of  a  periodical  or  newspaper: 

the  Atlantic  Monthly;  the  Philadelphia  Ledger. 

80.  Do  not  italicize  the  names  of  books  of  the  Bible 
(including  the  apocryphal  books),  or  the  titles  or  symbols 
of  manuscripts: 

Isaiah;  Revelation;  MS  Harley  2252;  Royal  E  19. 

81.  Do  not  italicize  titles  in  bibliographical  lists. 

82.  Some  writers  italicize  the  titles  of  short  poems  which 
form  part  of  a  collection,  of  essays,  of  short  stories,  or  of  other 
short  pieces  of  writing;  others  enclose  them  between  quo- 
tation marks  (See  §  228) : 

Christina  Rossetti's  Golden  Market;  Kipling's  The  Man  Who  Was; 
Lady  Gregory's  Spreading  the  News. 

83.  Do  not  italicize  or  quote  the  author's  name  when 
used  with  the  title  of  a  work: 

Wordsworth's  "Daffodils";  Scott's  Ivanhoe. 

84.  Italicize  names  of  ships,  docks,  and  airships: 
Oceanic;  East  India  dock;  Canada. 


430  APPENDIX  IV 

85.  Italicize  foreign  words  and  phrases  not  yet  adopted 
into  English: 

the  doctrine  of  laissez-faire;  the  mens  sana  idea. 

86.  Italicize  the  following  words,  phrases,  and  abbrevia- 
tions used  in  references: 

ad  loc.;  circa  (ca.);  et  al.;  ibid.;  idem,'  infra;  loc.  cit.;  op,  cit.;  passim; 
sic;  supra;  s.  v.;  vide;  also  see;  see  also  (in  references);  and  for  and 
read  (in  lists  of  errata). 

But  not. 

cf.;  etc.;  e.  g.;  i.  e.;  v.  or  vs.  (versus);  viz. 

87.  Italicize  letters,  words,  phrases,  clauses,  or  sentences 
referred  to  merely  as  letters,  words,  phrases,  clauses,  or 
sentences : 

The  letter  a  is  called  alpha;  the  word  enthuse  is  never  to  be  ad- 
mitted into  good  writing;  the  phrase  near  by  is  often  wrongly  used 
as  an  adjective;  in  the  sentence,  This  is  the  house  that  Jack  built, 
that  Jack  built  is  a  clause  modifying  house. 

88.  Italicize,  in  resolutions,  the  word  Resolved  but  not 
Whereas. 

89.  Italicize  any  word  or  group  of  words  for  strong 
emphasis. 

This  use  has  become  an  abuse  among  cheap  and  sensa- 
tional writers.  The  fewer  the  italicized  words  and  phrases, 
the  more  effective  they  are  when  they  appear. 

90.  Do  not  italicize  to  call  attention  to  a  humorous  or 
ironical  expression. 

91.  In  preparing  manuscript  for  the  printer,  words  to  be 
italicized  should  be  underscored  with  a  single  straight  line 
( — ).    Two  lines  (=)  call  for  small  capitals;  three  (=)  for 
capitals;  and  a  single  wavy  line  (~~)  for  black  faced  type. 


SPELLING  431 

IV 
SPELLING 

92.  The  student  who  needs  special  drill  in  spelling  should 
assimilate  the  following  pages  as  rapidly  as  possible.     A 
type  of  class  exercise  superior  to  the  ordinary  use  of  spelling 
lists  is  the  following: 

Let  each  member  of  the  class  suggest  orally  as  many 
examples  as  possible  of  the  rule  or  peculiarity  under  dis- 
cussion. As  soon  as  each  suggestion  is  made,  let  all  the 
class  write  it.  Then  let  the  lists  be  exchanged  for  criticism. 
As  a  result  of  this  joint  effort  the  list  will  be  compiled 
from  the  vocabulary  actually  used  by  all  the  students, 
and  will  be  so  emphasized  in  the  process  of  getting  it  to- 
gether that  the  words  will  be  better  remembered  than  if 
they  merely  form  part  of  a  list  to  be  memorized.  If  de- 
sirable, this  impromptu  work  can  be  supplemented  by 
later  work  with  the  dictionary  in  order  to  extend  the  list. 
It  is  desirable  that  each  student  should  copy  into  his  note- 
book all  words  that  give  him  special  trouble  (cf.  p.  41,  above). 

General  Rules 

The  following  rules  will  provide  for  the  correct  spelling 
of  many  classes  of  words: 

93.  In  derivatives  from  words  ending  in  silent  e,  before  a 
suffix  beginning  with  a  consonant,  the  e  is  retained: 

love— lovely;  excite— excitement;  tame — tameness. 
Exceptions:  duly;  truly;  wholly;  nursling;  judgment. 

94.  In  derivatives  from  words  ending  in  silent  e,  before 
a  suffix  beginning  with  a  vowel  the  e  is  dropped: 

change— changing;  blue— bluish;  bride — bridal;  guide — guidance; 
move— movable;  plume— plumage. 

95.  Note  that  the  consonant  before  the  e  is  not  doubled. 
Distinguish  betwen  hoping  from  hope  and  hopping  from  hop. 


432  APPENDIX  IV 

96.  Words  ending  in  ie,  after  dropping  the  e,  change  i  to 
y  before  i  in  a  suffix: 

die — dying. 

97.  Explain  the  following  exceptions  to  96: 

dye — dyeing;  singe — singeing; — eye — eyeing;  hie — hieing;  hoe — 
hoeing;  shoe — shoeing. 

98.  Words  in  which  the  final  e  follows  a  c  or  a  g  keep  the 
e  before  suffixes  in  a  and  o  in  order  to  preserve  the  soft 
sound  of  c  and  g: 

\     change — changeable;  peace — peaceable;  courage — courageous. 

99.  In  derivatives  from  words  ending  in  n  the  n  is  kept: 
drunken — drunkenness. 

100.  In  derivatives  from  words  ending  in  y   preceded 
by  a  vowel  the  y  is  kept: 

chimney — chimneys;  alloy — alloyed. 
Exceptions:  daily;  gaiety. 

101.  In  derivatives  from  words  ending  in  y  preceded  by 
a  consonant,  before  a  suffix  beginning  with  any  letter  but 
i  or  o  the  y  is  changed  to  i: 

mercy — merciful — merciless ;  busy — busily — business. 
Note:   cry — cries — cried — crying;   and  carry — carries — carried — 
carrying. 

102.  In  derivatives  from  words  ending  in  a  single  con- 
sonant preceded  by  a  short  vowel,  if  the  accent  is  on  the 
last  syllable,  the  consonant  is  doubled  before  a  suffix  be- 
ginning with  a  vowel: 

step — stepping;  glad — gladden;  fat — fatter — fattest;  man — man- 
nish; scrap — scrappy;  occur — occurrence;  prefer — preferring. 
But  note:  preference;  reference  (with  shift  of  accent). 

103.  In  derivatives  from  words  ending  in  a  single  con- 
sonant preceded  by  a  short  vowel,  if  the  accent  is  not  on 
the  last  syllable  the  consonant  is  not  doubled : 

travel — traveler — traveling;  differ — differing — difference;  develop 
— developing;  kidnap — kidnaper. 


SPELLING  433 

But  note:  humbug,  humbugging,  humbugged;  handicap,  handi- 
capping, handicapped. 

104.  In  abstract  nouns  ending  in  ion  derived  from  verbs 
ending  in  de,  ge,  re,  nd,  se,  ise,  ert,  or  mit,  the  spelling  is 
usually  sion: 

allusion;  submersion;  adhesion;  comprehension;  expansion;  pos- 
session; revision;  conversion;  remission. 

But  note:  attention;  contention;  intention  (cf.  intension). 

105.  In  abstract  nouns  derived  from  verbs  ending  in 
ct,  ne,  nt,  te,  the  spelling  is  usually  tion: 

abstraction;  convention;  invention;  fascination. 

106.  Note  that  al  is   commonly  an  adjective  ending; 
le,  a  noun  ending: 

critical;  article. 

107.  The  adjective  principal  means  chief.    In  two  senses 
it  is  used  as  a  noun: 

principal  (  =  chief  sum  of  money) . 
principal  (  =  chief  man). 

In  its  other  senses  we  use  the  regular  noun  ending  le: 
principle. 

108.  Adverbs  derived  from  adjectives  ending  in  I  double 
the  I: 

cool — coolly;  equal — equally. 

109.  Derivatives  from  words  ending  in  c,  formed  by  a 
termination  beginning  with  e,  i,  or  y  insert  k  when  it  is  de- 
sired to  keep  the  hard  sound  of  c: 

traffic — trafficked — trafficking ;  panic — panicky. 

110.  Words  containing  ei,  or  ie,  pronounced  like  ec  are 
spelled  with  ei  after  c:  otherwise  with  ie: 

receive;  believe. 

But  note:  seize  and  weird;  and  contrast  seize  and  siege. 

111.  Of  words  ending  in  ense  and  ence,  there  are  only 


434  APPENDIX  IV 

thirteen  in  ense;  and  of  these  all  but  two  (nonsense  and 
incense  [noun])  are  accented  on  the  last  syllable. 
All  other  nouns  of  this  group  end  in  ence. 

112.  Nouns  ending  in  ence  have  usually  an  accompany- 
ing adjective  in  ent;  and  nouns  in  ance,  an  adjective  in  ant. 
Learn  to  distinguish  between  these  vowels  in  pronuncia- 
tion, and  you  will  have  no  difficulty  in  spelling  them. 

Exercises  in  Spelling 

113.  It  is  assumed  that  you  have  carried  out  the  sug- 
gestions made  at  the  beginning  of  IV.     We  come  now  to 
groups  of  words  for  which  no  rules  can  be  phrased  on  the 
basis  of  English  alone.     Such  words  are  best  learned  by 
the  methods  of  association  and  contrast;  i.  e.,  by  collecting 
and  setting  over  against  each  other  in  distinct  groups  words 
which  because  of  resemblance  in  their  formation  tend  to 
be  confused.    Of  such  words,  those  that  give  special  trouble 
to  each  student  should  be  placed  in  his  spelling  notebook 
until  they  have  been  mastered.     Collect  the  words  by 
working  together  in  class.    A  rhyming  dictionary  will  help 
out  when  the  lists  are  short. 

-able  and  -ible 
-ance  and  -ence 
-ar,  -er,  and  -or 
-ary  and  -ery 
-dge  and  -gc 
-eous,  -ious,  -uous 
-cal,  -cle 
-ice,  -ise 

-ise,  -ize,  and  -yze 
-ede  and  -eed 
-ei-  and  -ie- 

114.  Give  the  nouns  derived  from  despair,  exclaim,  main- 
tain and  repeat. 

Add  other  examples  of  difference  in  the  spelling  of  the 
stem  between  a  verb  and  an  abstract  noun  derived  from  it. 

115.  Collect  lists  of  words  in  which  the  following  con- 
sonants are  doubled:  b,  c,  d,  f,  g,  h,  1,  m,  n,  p,  r,  s,  t.    Try 
to  get  at  least  ten  examples  of  each;  more,  if  possible. 


SPELLING 


435 


116.  Work  with  the  following  list  of  troublesome  words 
until  you  can  spell  every  word  in  it  without  hesitation: 


abscess 

bouquet 

curiosity 

fictitious 

absorption 

buoyant 

foliage 

accommodate 

bureau 

deep 

forebode 

acoustics 

burglar 

depth 

forehead 

acquaintance 

business 

descend 

foreign 

acquiescence 

description 

foremost 

acquisition 

Caesar 

desperate 

forest 

adequately 

calcimine 

develop 

forfeit 

adjacent 

calendar 

diamond 

fraternity 

address 
adviser 

campaign 
captain 

dilapidated 
diminish 

fulfill 
fundamental 

afraid 

carriage 

diphtheria 

aghast 

casualty 

diphthong 

gas  -es 

alumnus  -i 

cede 

discipline 

geometry 

alumna  -se 

century 

dormitory 

ghastly 

amateur 

ceremony 

doubt 

ghost 

analysis 

certain 

dyspepsia 

goal 

anaesthetic 

character 

goddess 

antithesis 

chemistry 

earnest 

government 

apartment 

chieftain 

ecstasy 

grammar 

apiece 

chimneys 

effervesce 

grandeur 

Apollo 

chorus 

eighth 

grocery 

Apollinaris 

Christian 

elaborate 

guarantee 

apology 

Cincinnati 

elicit 

guard  -ian 

appall 

coalesce 

eligible 

gymnasium 

arctic 

commission 

eliminate 

arithmetic 

comparative 

embarrass 

handsome 

ascetic 

comrade 

entrance 

happiness 

assassin 

conciliate 

equivalent 

harass 

athletics 

connoisseur 

excite 

haughty 

autobiography 

conscience 

exclaim 

height 

automobile 

conscientious 

excuse 

heinous 

autumnal 

conscious 

exercise 

hero  -es 

available 

consciousness 

exhaust 

hockey 

corduroy 

exhibit 

hospital 

bachelor 

correspondence 

exhort 

hypocrisy 

balance 

counterfeit 

explicit 

hypocrite 

banana 

courtesy 

Baptist 

crescent 

familiar 

Iliad 

beauteous 

crisis  -es 

fascinate 

imagination 

behavior 

criticism 

fatigue 

imitation 

bicycle 

crystal 

February 

indictment 

boundary 

curious 

fertile 

infinitive 

436 


APPENDIX  IV, 


irreparable 

mustache 

picturesque 

statistics 

irresistibly 

mystery 

possess 

stretch 

island 

mystify 

potato  -es 

success 

itself 

myth 

prairie 

suppress 

Presbyterian 

surprise 

jockey 

naphtha 

promontory 

syllable 

nasturtium 

psychology 

synonymous 

kerosene 

necessary 

pumpkin 

system 

kindergarten 

nickel 

pursue 

knuckle 

tautology 

occurrence 

recognize 

technical 

leisure 

Odyssey 

regular 

temperament 

lieutenant 

oneself 

reparation 

temperature 

luxury 

oppress 

reservoir 

tendency 

owing 

restaurant 

Thackeray 

Macaulay 

rhetoric 

thermometer 

maintenance 

paralysis 

tomato  -es 

maneuver 

parenthesis  -es 

salary 

tragedy 

manufacture  -r 

particular 

sandwich 

Tuesday 

manifold 

partner 

satisfactory 

twelfth 

marriage 

pamphlet 

Saturday 

tyrant 

mathematics 

parallel 

scandal 

measles 

peculiar 

schedule 

unmistakable 

mediaeval 

people 

scissors 

usage 

medieval 
medicine 

perform 
perspire 

scythe 
separate 

vegetable 

mercantile 
mimic 

persuade 
phenomenon  -a 

sergeant 
Shelley 

vengeance 
villain 
visitor 

miniature 

phrase 

shepherd 

miscellaneous 

physical 

silhouette 

volunteer 

Mississippi 
mortgage 

physician 
physics 

similar 
simultaneous 

Wednesday 

mosquito  -es 

physiology 

speech  (speak) 

yacht 

117.  Look  up  in  the  dictionary  differences  in  pronuncia- 
tion where  these  exist,  and  differences  of  meaning  in  each 
of  the  following  groups  of  words: 


accelerator,  exhilarator 
accept,  except 
access,  excess 
affect,  effect 
aisle,  isle,  I'll 
alley,  ally 

all  ready,  already;  all  together, 
altogether;  all  ways,  always 


allusion,    illusion,    and    elusion 

(also  the  verbs) 
aloud,  allowed 
altar,  alter 
amend,  emend 
angel,  angle 
apposition,  opposition 
ascent,  assent 


SPELLING 


437 


auger,  augur 
aught,  ought 
Austen,  Jane 
Austin,  Alfred 

bad,  bade 

bale,  bail 

ball,  bawl 

bare,  bear 

berry,  bury 

berth,  birth 

boar,  bore 

bolder,  boulder 

boarder,  border 

born,  borne,  bourne 

boy,  buoy 

brake,  break 

breath,  breathe 

bridal,  bridle 

Britain,  Briton,  Britannic 

buy,  by 

calvary,  cavalry 
campaign,    champagne,    cham- 
paign 

canon,  canon,  cannon 
canvas,  canvass 
capital,  capitol 
cease,  seize 
ceiling,  sealing 
celery,  salary 
cemetery,  seminary 
censor,  censure 
cereal,  serial 
cession,  session 
choir,  quire 
choler,  collar,  color 
chord,  cord 
chute,  shoot 
cite,  sight,  site, 
clothes,  cloths 
complement,  compliment 
coarse,  course 
colonel,  kernel 
confidant,  confident 
consul,  counsel,  council 
corporal,  corporeal 


costume,  custom 
currant,  current 

dairy,  diary 
deceased,  diseased 
decent,  descent 
dependant,  dependent 
desert,  dessert 
die,  dye;  dying,  dyeing 
draft,  draught 
dual,  duel 


ear,  e  er,  ere 
earnest,  Ernest 
elicit,  illicit 
Eliot,  George 
Elliott,  Ebenezer 
emigration,  immigration 

fain,  fane,  feign 
faint,  feint 
farther,  further 
feat,  feet,  fete 
fir,  fur 
flour,  flower 
formally,  formerly 
fort,  forte 
forth,  fourth 
forty,  fourteen 
foul,  fowl 
freeze,  frieze 


gage,  gauge 
gait,  gate 
gild,  guild 
gorilla,  guerrilla 
grate,  great 
grease,  Greece 
guild,  guilt 

hail,  hale 
hall,  hawl 
heal,  heel 
hew,  hue 
human,  humane 


438 


APPENDIX  IV 


idle,  idol,  idyl 
ingenious,  ingenuous 
it's,  it* 

Johnson,  Samuel 
Jonson,  Ben 

knead,  need 
knight,  night 

later,  latter 
lead,  led 
leased,  least 
lessen,  lesson 
lightening,  lightning 
lineament,  liniment 
loose,  lose 

mantel,  mantle 
meat,  meet,  mete 
medal,  meddle 
metal,  mettle 
might,  mite 
miner,  minor 
muscle,  mussel 

0,oh 

oar,  o'er,  ore 

participle,  participial 
passed,  past 
peace,  piece,  peas 
peal,  peel 
pedal,  peddle 
persecute,  prosecute 
pillar,  pillow 
plain,  plane 
practical,  practicable 
precede,  proceed  (but  cf.  proce- 
dure) 

principal,  principle 
prophecy,  prophesy 
propose,  purpose 


quiet,  quite 

rain,  reign,  rein 
rhyme,  rhythm 
right,  rite,  wright,  write 
road,  rode,  rowed 

scene,  seen 

serge,  surge 

sew,  so,  sow 

shear,  sheer 

shone,  shown 

side,  sighed 

sleight,  slight 

soar,  sore 

sole,  soul 

Spencer,  Herbert 

Spenser,  Edmund 

stake,  steak 

stationary,  stationery 

statue,  stature,  statute 

steal,  steel 

Stephenson,  George 

Stevenson,  Robert  Louis 

straight,  strait 

suit,  suite 

tail,  tale 

team,  teem 

than, then 

their,  there,  they're 

thorough,  through,  threw 

to,  too,  two 

track,  tract 

vain,  vane,  vein 

waist,  waste 

waive,  wave 

weak,  week 

weather,  wether,  whether 

who's,  whose 

your,  you're 


SPELLING  439 

The  Hyphen 

118.  When  you  are  in  doubt  as  to  where  a  word  should 
be  divided,  write  the  entire  word  on  the  next  line.     Too 
much  space  is  preferable  to  breaking  up  a  word  in  such  a 
way  that  the  reader  may  be  even  momentarily  confused. 

119.  The  hyphen  may  be  used  at  the  end  of  a  line: 

(1)  Between  parts  of  a  compound  word: 

court-yard 

(2)  Between  a  prefix  or  a  suffix  and  the  word  to  which 
it  is  joined: 

fo-tween;  anfe-cedent;  judg-ment;  \ov-able. 

(3)  When   a   consonant   is   doubled,   between   the   two 
letters  if  they  are  pronounced  in  different  syllables: 

run-ning;  com-mittee  or  commit-tee. 

(4)  Between  any  two  consonants  if  they  are  pronounced 
in  different  syllables: 

ful-fill;  prac-tise;  car-cass;  ar-mor. 

If  both  are  pronounced  in  one  syllable,  place  the  hyphen 
so  that  they  will  be  kept  in  it: 

He-brew;  bring-ing;  push-es;  cath-olic;  tele-phone;  sign-ing. 

,(5)  In  a  group  of  more  than  two  consonants,  so  that 
those  pronounced  together  will  remain  together: 

dis-charge;  rab-ble;  al-though. 

(6)  Before  or  after  a  single  consonant  standing  between 
vowels  so  that  it  will  remain  with  the  vowel  with  which  it 
is  in  closest  connection: 

fu-tile  haz-ard 

na-tion  shad-ow 

se-vere  for-eign 

120.  The  hyphen  may  not  be  used: 

(1)  Between  doubled  consonants  pronounced  in  the 
same  syllable: 


440  APPENDIX  IV 

equipped;  expressed. 

(2)  To  divide  a  monosyllable,  even  with  a  diphthong  or 
a  doubled  consonant: 

though;  taught;  stopped. 

(3)  To  separate  a  syllable  of  one  letter  from  the  rest  of 
the  word: 

alone;  about;  many. 

(4)  To  separate  the  letters  of  a  diphthong  or  a  digraph: 
Croesus;  elephant. 

121.  The  hyphen  is  also  used  to  mark  the  relationship 
of  words  in  the  process  of  growing  together;  they  are 
written  first  separately,  then  with  the  hyphen,  and  finally 
as  one  word.    It  is  difficult  to  give  any  rules  that  may  not 
be  soon  made  invalid  by  current  practice.    Until  recently, 
for  example,  today  and  tomorrow  were  hyphenated.     The 
present  tendency  is  to  avoid  the  hyphen  as  much  as  possible. 
The  following  principles  may  help  you;  but  in  cases  of 
doubt  consult  a  recent  dictionary: 

122.  Use  the  hyphen  between  a  prefix  and  the  word  to 
which  it  is  joined  whenever  the  force  of  the  prefix  is  still 
strongly  felt  as  distinct  from  the  meaning  of  the  word  itself: 

non-existent;  pre-Raphaelite;  quasi-literary;  vice-consul;  ex- 
president. 

123.  Use  the  hyphen  between  two  nouns  when  each 
emphasizes  a  distinct  idea: 

martyr-president;  my  doctor-brother. 

124.  Write  as  a  single  word  without  hyphen  all  com- 
binations in  which  a  prefix  has  blended  with  another  word 
to  express  a  single  idea: 

antechamber;  antiseptic;  coordinate;  cooperate;  reelect;  biennial; 
coequal;  demigod;  international;  postgraduate;  recast;  semiannual; 
subconscious;  superfine;  tricolor;  unmanly;  inanimate;  asymmetri- 
cal; overweight;  underfed. 


SPELLING  441 

125.  Write  two   nouns   as   one   whenever  they   are   so 
blended  that  they  convey  a  single  idea: 

schoolroom;  workshop;  lawgiver;  taxpayer;  bookkeeper;  stock- 
holder; workingman. 

126.  To   emphasize  the  prefix  and  to  distinguish  the 
compound  from  another  combination  in  which  the  two 
elements  have  been  blended,  a  hyphen  is  sometimes  needed: 

recreation,  re-creation;  reformation,  re-formation;  recover,  re- 
cover. 

127.  Use  a  hyphen  with  numerals  prefixed  to  nouns  and 
adjectives  to  form  a  measure: 

six-barred  gate;  two-mile  walk;  half-truth;  quarter-plate. 

128.  Use  a  hyphen  in  spelling  out  fractions  unless  either 
numerator  or  denominator  already  requires  one: 

two-fifths 
But:  thirty-seven  hundredths. 

The  Apostrophe 

129.  Use  the  apostrophe 

(1)  With  or  without  *  as  a  mark  of  the  genitive  case: 

With  •?,  as  a  rule,  in  the  singular:  ass's,  Mr.  Stubbs's,  Dickens's. 

But  without  the  *  in  long  words  ending  in  s:  Herodias'  beauty; 
Demosthenes'  oration;  for  conscience'  sake. 

Use  the  apostrophe  alone  in  plurals  ending  in  s;  otherwise,  the 
apostrophe  and  *:  boys'  clothing;  men's  hats. 

(2)  In  all  contractions  of  words  and  omissions  of  figures 
from  dates: 

don't;  doesn't;  shan't;  won't;  'tis;  it's;  Boys  of  '76. 

(3)  With  s  to  form  special  plural  forms: 

Letters:  p's  and  q's 
Figures:  8's  and  6's 

Word  groups  and  words  not  usually  pluralized:  these  don't's; 
these  I  can't's! 


442  APPENDIX  V 

Spelling  Out  and  Abbreviation 

130.  Abbreviation  should  be  as  far  as  possible  avoided 
in  letters  and  in  the  body  of  manuscript. 

131.  In  statistical  matter,  however,  and  tables  of  all 
kinds,  abbreviations  are  desirable  in  order  to  save  space. 

132.  In  footnotes  the  abbreviation  of  titles,  publishers' 
names,  and  all  words  used  in  giving  references,  is  permissi- 
ble for  the  same  reason.    Note  the  following  abbreviations 
which  commonly  appear  in  footnotes: 

vol.  I  (plural:  vols.);  no.  1  (nos.);  Ps.  20  (Pss.);  div.  HI;  chap,  ii 
(chaps.);  art.  iii  (arts.);  sec.  4  (sees.);  p.  5  (pp.);  col.  6  (cols.);  vs.  7 
(vss.);  1.  8  (11.);  n.  9  (nn.);  fig.  7  (figs.);  pp.  5-7  (=  pages  5  to  7 
inclusive);  pp.  of.  (=page  5  and  the  following  page);  pp.  5ff.  (= 
page  5  and  the  following  pages). 

133.  Numbers  that  can  be  expressed  in  one  or  two  words 
should  be  spelled  out  in  manuscript.     For  numbers  re- 
quiring more  words  figures   may   be   given.      Whichever 
method  is  used,  however,  it  should  be  maintained  con- 
sistently   throughout    a    passage.      Figures    should    never 
begin  a  sentence;  either  spell  out  or  construct  the  sentence 
so  that  the  number  does  not  stand  first. 

134.  Figures  should  be  used  whenever  a.  m.  and  p.  m. 
are  permissible. 

135.  Avoid  etc.  as  far  as  possible  in  the  body  of  manu- 
script.   Use  and  so  on  if  the  idea  must  be  expressed. 

V 
ON  SPEAKING  ENGLISH 

136.  Listen  carefully  to  the  speech  of  others.    Train  your 
ear  to  distinguish  between  correctly  and  incorrectly  spoken 
English,  between  English  that  is  made  beautiful  and  English 
that  is  murdered.    Then  aim  at  an  ideal — the  ideal  of  doing 
justice  to  sounds  and  of  making  the  most  of  such  powers  of 
speech  as  you  have  been  endowed  with. 

Remember  that  English  may  be  spoiled  in  at  least  four 
ways:  by  a  bad  voice;  by  unpleasant  intonation;  by  defective 
enunciation;  and  by  faulty  pronunciation. 


ON  SPEAKING  ENGLISH  443 

137.  If  every  American  took  lessons  from  an  expert  in 
voice  culture,  our  country  would  be  a  much  pleasanter 
place  to  live  in.    But  certain  things  any  one  can  do  for  him- 
self merely  by  practising  along  the  lines  of  suggestions.    The 
earnest  will  to  improve  can  bring  about  a  great  change  in 
any  unpleasant  voice. 

138.  Avoid  nasality.    It  is  largely  a  habit.  Practise  talking 
more  with  your  lips  and  you  will  talk  less  through  your  nose. 

139.  Avoid  shrillness.     If  your  voice  is  high,  use  the 
lower  tones. 

140.  Avoid  throatiness.     Bring  your  voice  forward  and 
make  your  lips  and  tongue  do  their  share  of  the  work. 

141.  Avoid  drawling.     Yo.u  will  get  a  clearer  enuncia- 
tion if  you  speed  up. 

142.  Avoid  jerkiness.  Steady  your  sentences.    Donotfling 
the  words  out  in  a  mob;  utter  them  with  dignity  and  poise. 

143.  Do  not  mumble.    Distinctness  is  one  of  the  cardinal 
virtues  of  speech. 

144.  Avoid  monotonous  or  sing-song  speech.     This  can 
be  done  simply  by  striving  for  variety. 

145.  In  enunciation  the  chief  faults  lie  hi  the  pronuncia- 
tion of  the  vowels,  and  of  the  consonants  r  and  s;  and  in 
the  failure  to  utter  at  all  certain  consonants  which  are 
closely  combined  with  others  as,  c  in  arctic,  and  final  g  in 
going,  doing,  etc. 

146.  Purity  and  variety  of  vowel  sounds  are  among  the 
chief  marks  of  the  cultivated  speaker.     He  understands 
all  the  differences  in  the   Key  to  Pronunciation  given  in 
the  front  of  the  dictionary,  and  he  is  never  guilty  of  the 
following  errors  of  pronunciation: 

Accented  vowels 

a  in  fast  and  can't  pronounced  flat  and  thin 

o  in  mother  like  aw  in  law 

ir  in  girl  like  oy  in  boy 

ew  in  news  like  oo  in  boot 

e  in  very  like  u  in  furry 

ea  in  instead  like  i  in  still 
Unaccented  vowels 

a  like  i  or  u,  or  disappearing  altogether:  melwn-choly;  cabbzge; 
critic'l 


444  APPENDIX  V 

e  like  i,  u,  or  lost:  colh'ge;  studwnt;  diff'r'nt 
i,  y  like  u:  gen-u-wn;  analu-sis 
o,  like  u  or  lost:  no-bwdy;  hist'ry 
u  like  e:  ackerit. 

147.  The   consonant  s   in   some  parts   of  the  country- 
drags  in  an  r: 

horspital. 

148.  The  consonant  r  is  perhaps  the  most  abused  of  all 
sounds  in  English.    It  is  often  either  lost  altogether,  or 
dropped  where  it  belongs  and  added  where  it  does  not: 

What's  mo-ah,  I'll  have  the  lawr  on  him. 

Or  it  is  pronounced  with  a  heavy,  distressing  burr. 

Aim  at  a  clearly  enunciated  r  which,  however,  does  not 
attract  attention  to  itself. 

149.  One  of  the  worst  faults  of  speech  is  the  running 
together  of  many  sounds  and  the  total  omission  of  others, 
which  results  in  such  messy  enunciation  as: 

"I  gottalotadope  from'mth'otherday";  "Whaddayamean?"  "A 
fella's  gotta  rightersay  watethinks;  an  I'magoin'ter";  "Ye-ah,  I'm 
agoin'ter  leave  collidge  prob'ly  in  Febuwary." 

150.  The  dictionary  indicates  not  merely  the  qualities  of 
the  sounds  which  compose  each  word,  but  also  the  position 
of  the  accent.     We  have  space  for  only  a  few  of  the  most 
flagrant  errors.     Attention  is  called  to  them  here  because 
they  seem  almost  ineradicable: 

abdo'men,  not  ab'domen  ex'quisite,  not  exquis'ite 

absent'  (verb),  not  ab'sent  finance',  not  fi'nance 

accli'mate,  not  ac'climate  form'idable,  not  formid'able 

address',  not  ad'dress  grimace',  not  grim'ace 

adult',  not  ad'ult  har'ass,  not  harass' 

a'eroplane,  not  a'reoplane  hos'pitable,  not  hospit'able 

ag'grandize,  not  aggran'dize  ide'a,  not  i'dea 

ally',  not  al'ly  in'fluence,  not  influ'ence 

col'umn,  not  col'yum  inqui'ry,  not  in'quiry 

com'parable,  not  compar'able  lam'entable,  not  lament'able 

com'plex,  not  complex'  me'diocre,  not  medio'cre 

condo'lence,  not  con'dolence  po'em,  po'et,  not  pome,  po'ut 

da'ta,  not  dat'ta  nor  da'ta  re'al,  not  reel 

des'picable,  not  despic'able  resour'ces,  not  re' sources 


PUNCTUATION  445 

151.  Beyond  all    these    details,   there  is  what  may    be 
called  manner  in  speaking,   by  which  culture  or  the  lack 
of  it  is  immediately  apparent.    This  is  a  complex  of  tone, 
enunciation,   pronunciation,   and  the  mental  attitude  of 
the  speaker  as  indicated  by  his  management  of  speech. 
A  quiet,  confident,  poised  manner  accomplishes  far  more 
than  either  bluster  or  excessive  politeness. 

To  acquire  this  right  way  of  speaking  there  is  no  better 
means  than  reading  aloud  under  competent  and  close 
criticism  well-written  dialogue,  especially  in  modern  plays, 
as  showing  the  best  idiom  in  current  usage.  Among  au- 
thors to  be  recommended  for  this  use  are :  John  Galsworthy, 
St.  John  Hankin,  Bernard  Shaw,  Granville  Barker. 

152.  Unless  part  of  the  class  period  is  sometimes  given 
to  such  reading,  the  student  who  especially  needs  guidance 
in  speaking  should  practice  frequently  with  a  tutor  or  friend. 


VI 
PUNCTUATION 

153.  In  the  following  brief  outline  the  uses  of  the  marks 
of  punctuation  are  summed  up  as  nearly  as  possible  ac- 
cording to  current  practice.  It  must  be  realized,  however, 
that  in  punctuation  there  is  frequently  room  for  difference 
of  opinion.  This  is  especially  true  of  the  use  of  the  comma, 
semicolon,  and  colon.  Further,  an  experienced  writer 
knows  how  to  give  his  punctuation  marks  meanings  which 
at  times  differ  considerably  from  their  usual  force.  There- 
fore it  is  important  both  to  become  thoroughly  familiar 
with  standard  usage,  and  to  be  always  alert  to  observe 
variations  from  this  and  to  determine  whether  these  are 
due  to  the  desire  to  produce  a  particular  effect  or  to  igno- 
rance of  the  proper  marking. 

This  outline  may  be  used  in  two  ways:  (1)  for  reference 
on  single  points,  especially  for  the  purpose  of  correcting 
errors  in  a  paper;  and  (2)  for  drill.  For  this  drill  no  specially 


446  APPENDIX  VI 

constructed  exercises  have  been  provided.  It  is  believed 
that  more  valuable  practice  will  be  gained  if  the  student 
collects  his  own  examples — from  this  book,  or  any  other 
which  is  reasonably  normal  in  its  punctuation — notes 
exceptions  and  apparent  exceptions,  and  draws  his  own 
conclusions.  For  further  drill  on  points  of  special  diffi- 
culty he  cannot  do  better  than  copy  entirely  without  punctua- 
tion marks  a  good  piece  of  prose,  punctuate  it,  and  compare 
his  result  with  the  original.  Such  practice  should  be  re- 
peated daily  for  some  weeks  by  the  student  who  wishes  to 
learn  what  punctuation  can  do  for  style. 

Period 

154.  After  a  declarative  sentence,  whether  complete  or 
elliptical  (cf.  p.  55). 

155.  Except  in  a  parenthesis  embodied  in  another  sen- 
tence: 

He  speaks  French  (I  have  his  word  for  it)  like  a  native. 

156.  After  abbreviations  (including  initials). 

157.  Except  MS,  MSS,  and  Roman  numerals  in  the  body 
of  the  text. 

Question  Mark: 

158.  After  an  interrogative  sentence,  whether  complete 
or  elliptical. 

159.  Except  a  rhetorical  question  requiring  no  answer  and 
strongly  exclamatory. 

160.  After  each  interrogative  element  of  a  sentence  con- 
sisting of  a  series  of  related  questions  requiring  separate 
emphasis: 

What  had  become  of  his  duty?  his  honor?  his  plighted  word? 

161.  But  not  after  an  indirect  question,  unless  the  entire 
sentence  is  interrogative: 

He  asked  what  I  meant.    But:  Did  he  ask  what  I  meant? 


PUNCTUATION  447 

162.  Within  parentheses  to  show  doubt  as  to  a  word  or 
idea: 

There  are  400,000  (?)  words  in  English. 
This  Korszak  (?)  is  a  Czech. 

Exclamation  Mark 

163.  After  any  sentence,  part  of  sentence,  or  word,  which 
is  used  as  strongly  exclamatory. 

164.  When  an  interjection  is  used  to  intensify  the  emo- 
tion, the  exclamation  mark  may  stand  after  it,  without 
interfering  with  the  punctuation  of  the  sentence  as  a  whole; 
or  it  may  stand  at  the  end  of  the  sentence,  with  a  comma 
after  the  interjection   (cf.  p.   68).     But  the  emotion  will 
be  concentrated  by  the  reader  where  the  exclamation  mark 
stands. 

165.  In    parentheses   within    the    sentence,    to    express 
criticism  of  a  word  or  phrase: 

Everybody  likes  their  (!)  own  way. 

Colon 

166.  Before  a  long  quotation,  or  even  a  short  quotation 
when  this  is  to  stand  out  sharply  from  its  introductory 
words. 

167.  Before  a  quotation  not  introduced  by  a  verb  of 
saying: 

She  looked  reproachful:  "Albert!" 
He  shrugged  his  shoulders:  "Well?" 

168.  Before  a  formal  list,  whether  each  item  begins  a  new 
line  or  not. 

169.  To  separate  an  expression  that  is  grammatically  com- 
plete from  one  or  more  others  which  amplify  or  illustrate  it: 

Most  countries  have  a  national  flower:  France  the  lily;  England 
the  rose;  Scotland  the  thistle. 

170.  Before  namely,  thai  is,  as,  viz.,  e.  g.,  or  any  similar  ex- 
pression used  to  introduce  formally  an  example  or  an  illustra- 
tion: 


448  APPENDIX  VI 

Abbreviate  "Saint"  in  place-names:  e.  g.,  St.  Louis,  St.  Paul's 
Church. 

171.  After  the  greeting  of  a  business  letter  (cf.  §  36). 

172.  Between  chapter  and  verse  in  quoting  Scripture: 

1  Kings,  3:7. 

173.  Between  place  of  publication  and  publisher's  name 
in  bibliographical  references. 

174.  Between  hours  and  minutes  in  time  abbreviations: 

12:20  p.  m. 

Semicolon 

176.  Between  clauses  of  a  compound  sentence  if  they 
are  to  be  sharply  distinguished  or  contrasted. 

176.  Between   clauses   of   a   compound   sentence   when 
they  contain  one  or  more  commas. 

177.  In  lists  of  references  to  set  off  one  title  from  another: 

P.  Schaff,  History  of  the  Christian  Church,  HI,  534;  J.  L.  Klein, 
Gesckichte  des  Dramas,  TV,  lOff.;  C.  Davidson,  Studies  in  the  English 
Mystery  Plays,  pp.  6ff. 

178.  In  any  series  of  details,  to  separate  groups  of  asso- 
ciated words  which  require  within  themselves  the  use  of 
commas: 

I  cannot  readily  forget  his  glaring  eyes;  his  livid,  pockmarked 
face;  his  dragging,  shambling  gait. 

Comma 

179.  After,  before,  or  before  and  after,  a  vocative. 

180.  After,  or  before  and  after,  yes,  no,  or  any  other  ad- 
verb used  to  modify  the  sentence  as  a  whole: 

Certainly,  I  shall  be  glad  to  help  you. 

But:  I  shall  certainly  be  glad  to  help  you  (where  certainly  modifies 
shall  be  glad). 

181.  After  an  interjection  or  an  exclamatory  phrase  when 
the  exclamation  mark  is  placed  at  the  end  of  the  sentence: 

For  mercy's  sake,  be  careful! 


PUNCTUATION  449 

182.  After  a  transition  word  or  phrase   connecting  a 
sentence  with  the  one  before  it,  when  emphasis  is  desired 
for  the  connection,  or  when  the  transitional  element  itself 
is  somewhat  elaborate: 

Moreover,  I  am  too  easily  influenced. 

In  addition  to  all  these  obstacles,  the  people  were  hostile. 

183.  Before  and  after  a  transition  word  that  does  not 
begin  the  sentence,  in  order  that  it  may  be  distinguished 
from  an  adverb  modifying  an  element  within  the  sentence 
itself: 

The  King,  then,  protested    vigorously    (recalls  something  said 
before). 
The  King  then  protested  vigorously  (then  modifies  protested). 

184.  After  an  independent  phrase  (absolute  phrase)  which 
modifies  the  sentence  as  a  whole: 

The  bridge  being  finished,  most  of  the  workmen  were  dismissed. 

185.  Before  and  after  an  appositive: 
Mr.  Smith,  the  lawyer,  and  John  Muir,  LLD. 

185a.  Except  when  the  appositive  combines  with  a  name 
to  form  a  title  or  similar  closely  connected  word  group: 
William  the  Conqueror:  my  brother  Bill:  the  blacksmith  Hodge. 

186.  Before  and  after  a  phrase  indicating  place  of  resi- 
dence or  position! 

Mr.  Connors,  of  the  Foreign  Office,  and  Senator  Harrison,  of 
Vermont,  are  intimate  friends. 

186a.  Except  when  the  phrase  is  so  closely  connected  with 
the  name  as  to  be  an  essential  part  of  it: 

Saul  of  Tarsus;  Randolph  of  Roanoke. 

187.  To  separate  words,  or  groups  of  words,  used  in  series, 
that  is,  as  parallel  in  construction: 

Never  to  fail  in  kindliness,  in  patience,  in  love,  with  the  feeble 
of  mind  or  of  will  taxes  one's  courtesy,  morality,  and  self-control. 

187a.  Except  when  very  close  connection  is  indicated  by 
the  use  of  conjunctions  without  punctuation  marks  (cf. 
pp.  73f.  above). 

188.  Note  that  when  and  is  used  to  connect  only  the 


450  APPENDIX  VI 

last  two  members  of  a  series,  the  comma  should  also  be 
used  (cf.  p.  73  above). 

189.  Between  words  repeated  to  secure  emphasis: 

Money,  money,  money  is  all  you  think  of. 

190.  To  separate  adjectives  modifying  the  same  sub- 
stantive when  each  contributes  separately  to  the  modifica- 
tion (cf.  p.  69  above). 

191.  Before,  after,  or  before  and  after  a  non-essential 
(non-restrictive)  relative  clause  (cf.  pp.  87,  88,  above). 

192.  After  a  long  modifier  that  immediately  precedes 
and  tends  to  obscure  the  subject  (cf.  p.  67  above). 

193.  Before  and  after  a  long  modifier  that  intervenes 
between  subject  and  predicate,  and  tends  to  obscure  their 
relationship  (cf.  p.  67  above). 

194.  Before  and  after  an  antithetical  phrase  or  clause 
introduced  by  not: 

They  surrendered,  not  because  they  were  beaten,  but  because 
they  knew  they  would  be. 

195.  After  words  introducing  a  short  quotation. 

196.  To  separate  the  parts  of  a  quotation  from  inter- 
vening explanatory  matter: 

"I  will  come,"  said  I,  "and  show  you  how  to  play  golf."  But 
note  that  a  mark  of  interrogation  or  of  exclamation  is  not  replaced 
by  a  comma. 

197.  Between  the  parts  of  an  interrogative  sentence  con- 
sisting of  a  statement  and  a  question: 

You  will  come,  won't  you? 

198.  Between  the  name  of  a  city  or  town  and  its  state 
or  country. 

199.  Between  the  name  of  a  street  and  that  of  its  city  or 
town. 

200.  Between  the  name  of  a  day  and  the  date  of  the 
month;  and  between  the  day  of  the  month  and  the  year. 

201.  After  the  greeting  of  a  personal  letter. 

202.  After  the  close  of  a  letter. 


PUNCTUATION  451 

203.  After  a  surname  followed  by  initials  or  a  baptismal 
name: 

Jones,  H.  J.;  Reed,  Henry. 

204.  After,  or  before  and  after,  all  such  parenthetical  sum- 
marizing expressions  as  for  example,  for  instance,  that  is,  e.  g., 
i.  e.,  viz.,  etc.;  cf.  §  170,  above. 

205.  To  separate  into  groups  of  three  figures,  numbers 
expressing  quantity  and  extending  to  more  than  three  places : 

5,768,293 

205a.  But  dates  and  other  designation  numbers  are  not  so 
divided: 

The  year  1919;  Columbia  8288;  1422  Main  St. 

206.  To  show  the  omission  of  words  which  must  be  sup- 
plied from  the  context; 

In  Indiana  there  are  seventeen;  in  Ohio,  twenty- two. 

206a.  But  where  no  ambiguity  can  arise  the  comma  is 
usually  omitted. 

207.  Between  the  details  in  literary  references: 

Thackeray,  W.  M.,  Vanity  Fair;  Milton,  Paradise  Lost,  II,  17.143. 

208.  After  Resolved  and  Whereas  in  resolutions. 

209.  Between  any  two  words  or  expressions  that  would 
wrongly  be  taken  together  if  not  separated  by  the  comma: 

To  Lucy,  Dean  was  a  mystery;  What  he  says,  is  true. 

Common  Abuses  of  the  Comma 

210.  Between  two  independent  statements: 

Not:  Spring  is  here,  I  heard  a  bluebird. 

But:  Spring  is  here;  I  heard  a  bluebird  today. 

211.  Before  or  after  that,  whether,  and  similar  expressions, 
used  with  a  verb  of  saying  or  asking: 

Not :  He  said,  that  he  would  come  early. 
Or:  He  said  that,  he  would  come  early. 
But:  He  said  that  he  would  come  early. 


452  APPENDIX  VI 

212.  Between  a  noun  and  the  last  of  a  series  of  adjectives 
modifying  it: 

Not:  A  knotty,  mossy,  half-dead,  oak. 
But:  A  knotty,  mossy,  half-dead  oak. 

213.  Between  a  verb  and  the  first  member  of  a  series 
after  it: 

Not:  There  are,  roses,  poppies,  and  irises  in  bloom. 
But:  There  are  roses,  poppies,  and  irises  in  bloom. 

214.  Before   a   word   or  phrase  to   which   attention   is 
called  for  itself: 

Not:  The  word,  fairing  means,  present. 
But:  The  word  fairing  means  present. 

215.  After  a  signature  followed  by  a  title  of  office: 

Not:  Joseph  Burnham,  But:  Joseph  Burnham 

Secretary  Secretary 


Dash 

216.  After  an  incomplete  sentence  or  clause: 

"I  will  say,"  he  began,  "that — " 

217.  Note  that  the  dash  replaces  the  period;  but  that  a 
question  or  exclamation  mark  must  be  used  if  needed : 

"What  did  you—?" 
"How  dare  you — !" 

218.  Within  the  sentence  where  the  structure  is  broken 
and  partly  repeated  or  changed: 

He  is  easy-going — far  too  easy-going  to  be  successful. 
I  believe  I  shall  ask  you — no,  you  would  refuse. 

219.  After  a  long  subject  and  before  a  word  or  phrase 
summarizing  it: 

Infantry,   cavalry,   artillery,   aviators — all   were   moved   by   a 
common  impulse. 

220.  Before  and  after  any  word  or  phrase  or  clause,  to 


PUNCTUATION  453 

set  it  apart  from  the  main  trend  of  the  sentence,  yet  not 
so  entirely  as  if  it  were  enclosed  between  parentheses: 

The  horseman  drew  near — it  was  Hay  ward — shouting:  "Fire!" 

221.  Note  that  commas  are  not  used  before  dashes: 

The  feathered  hat — which  had  been  the  pride  of  her  life — lay 
in  the  mud. 

222.  Note  that  the  en-dash  (-)  is  used  to  show  a  suc- 
cession of  pages  or  a  period  of  time;  but  should  not  be  used  if 
from  precedes: 

pp.  34-122;  August-September,  1914. 
Not:  From  August-September,  1914. 
But:  From  August  to  September,  1914. 

Ellipses 

223.  To  fill  out  lines  of  verse  quoted  in  part,  and  be- 
tween lines  of  verse  to  show  that  others  have  been  omitted : 

Of  Man's  first  disobedience,  and  the  fruit 
Of  that  forbidden  tree. 


Sing,  Heavenly  Muse 

224.  In  emotional  dialogue — in  drama  or  fiction — to  show 
pauses  or  breaks  in  the  thought: 

He  put  down  his  glass  awkwardly.  .  .  .  "The  fear,  .  .  .  the 
fear  .  .  .  look  you  ...  it  is  always  there."  ...  He  touched 
his  breast.  .  .  . 

Quotation  Marks 

225.  Before  and  after  every  quoted  word  or  group  of 
words  within  a  paragraph. 

226.  When    two    or    more    successive    paragraphs    are 
quoted,  before  the  first  word  of  each,  but  at  the  end  of  the 
last  paragraph  only. 

227.  Any  words  or  phrases  to  which  particular  attention  is 
directed  may  be  placed  between  quotation  marks : 

Were  you  at  Gertie's  "shower"? 

"Drop-folio"  means  a  page  number  at  the  foot  of  the  page. 


454  APPENDIX  VI 

228.  Cited  titles  of  short  poems,  addresses,  articles,  parts 
of  books,  and  series  of  books,  and  mottoes,  toasts,  etc.,  are 
usually  enclosed  in  quotation  marks  (but  see  §  82) : 

Wordsworth's    "Daffodils";   James's    "The   Powers   of   Men"; 
"English  Men  of  Letters"  series;  "  Altiora  cano." 

229.  When  a  quoted  sentence  ends  with  a  mark  of  inter- 
rogation, of  exclamation,  or  of  ellipsis,  or  with  a  dash,  this 
mark  is  kept  within  the  quotation  marks  and  outside  punctu- 
ation is  omitted.    In  all  other  cases  the  punctuation  of  the 
enclosing  sentence  dominates;  and  this,  if  a  period  or  a 
comma,  is  placed  within  the  quotation  marks;  if  any  other 
mark,  it  is  placed  outside: 

"Did  you  really?"  I  asked.     "How  splendid!"  I  said;  "now  I 
never  .  .  ." 

The  poem  begins,  "Where  shall  the  lover  rest." 

Why  should  I  care  "to  make  the  world  safe  for  democracy"? 

230.  For  quotation  within  quotation,  single  quotation 
marks  are  used;  and  for  all  further  degrees  of  quotation 
within  quotation,  double  and  single  marks  alternately: 

"Then  I  said  to  him,  'I  was,  as  the  poet  says,  "born  to  blush  un- 
seen," ' "  said  Jeff. 

Marks  of  Parenthesis 

231.  Before  and  after  explanatory  matter  which  is  in- 
dependent in  structure  of  the  main  thought  and  might  be 
entirely  omitted  without  altering  the  thought. 

232.  Before  and  after  stage  directions  in  a  play: 

Lady  Sims    (abashed).     I'm  sorry,   Harry.      (A  perfect  butler 
appears  and  presents  a  card.) 

233.  Note  that  an  independent  sentence  within  paren- 
thesis is  punctuated  as  if  the  parenthesis  were  not  there; 
but  embodied  in  another  sentence  (1)  loses  its  final  period, 
but  (2)  keeps  a  final  question  or  exclamation  mark: 

Kathleen  (she  is  a  tease  really)  gave  him  no  peace. 
Kathleen  (she  is  such  a  tease!)  gave  him  no  peace. 
Kathleen  (have  you  ever  seen  her  tease  anyone?)  gave  him  no 
peace. 


GRAMMAR  REVIEW  455 

234.  Note  that  when  a  parenthesis  ends  at  the  end  of 
the  sentence,  the  end  punctuation  mark  follows  the  mark 
of  parenthesis. 

He  was  riding  a  sheltie  (a  Shetland  pony). 

235.  Note    that    for    parenthesis    within    parenthesis, 
brackets  are  used;  and  then  alternately  with  parenthesis 
if  necessary. 

Brackets 

236.  Before  and  after  matter  conjectured  to  have  been 
part  of  a  text: 

Poor  soul,  the  centre  of  my  sinful  earth, 
[Amidst]  these  rebel  powers  that  thee  array.  .  .  . 

237.  Before  and  after  notes  inserted  by  an  editor,  and 
other  similar  matter,  which  is  entirely  foreign  to  the  original 
text: 

This  paper  was  signed  in  1679.     [This  is  an  error  for  1671;  he 
died  in  1675— Ed.] 

VII 
GRAMMAR  REVIEW 

Questions 

238.  What  is  the  function  of  each  part  of  speech  in  the  sentence? 
Illustrate. 

239.  Which  parts  of  speech  have  similar  functions?     Explain 
the  differences. 

240.  What  name  is  given  to  both  the  noun  and  the  pronoun? 
May  it  be  given  also  to  word-groups  in  the  sentence?    What  kinds 
of  word-groups?      What  is  the   fundamental   difference  between 
noun  and  pronoun?    What  is  the  fundamental  idea  of  substantive 
(cf.  dictionary)? 

241.  What  is  the  fundamental  idea  of  predication  (cf .  dictionary)  ? 
Which  part  of  speech  performs  this  function? 

242.  What  is  a  sentence  (cf.  dictionary)?    What  are  its  essential 
elements?      Under   what   circumstances    may    each   be   omitted? 
What  is  a  sentence  with  such  omissions  called? 


456  APPENDIX  VII 

243.  What  non-essential  elements  may  be  found  in  a  sentence? 
What  is  the  function  of  each? 

244.  What  types  of  sentence  are  there  with  reference  to  the 
form  in  which  the  thought  is  expressed?    Illustrate  each. 

246.  How  are  sentences  classified  according  to  their  structure? 
Illustrate  each  type. 

246.  What  is  a  clause?  a  phrase?     What  is  the  fundamental 
difference  between  them?    Illustrate. 

247.  What  are  the  two  main  types  of  clause?    How  is  each  used? 
Illustrate. 

248.  In  what  three  ways  are  subordinate  clauses  used?     Illus- 
trate each. 

249.  In  what  two  ways  are  adjective  clauses  used?     Illustrate 
each.    What  is  the  punctuation  proper  to  each? 

250.  In  what  ways  are  adverbial  clauses  used?    Illustrate  clauses 
of  time,  place,  manner,  degree,  cause,  purpose,  result,  condition, 
and  concession. 

261.  How  are  phrases  constructed?    Illustrate. 

262.  In  what  ways  are  prepositional  phrases  used?     Illustrate 
the  substantive,   adjective,   and   adverbial   uses   of  prepositional 
phrases. 

253.  In  what  ways  are  participial  phrases  used?    Illustrate  the 
adjective  use;  the  nominative  absolute. 

254.  What  is  the  difference  between  the  participle  and  the  gerund? 
How  are  gerund  phrases  used?    Illustrate. 

256.  In  what  ways  is  the  substantive  used  in  the  sentence? 
Illustrate  each. 

266.  What  is  a  vocative?    Illustrate.        How  is  it  punctuated? 

257.  What  is  an  appositive?    Illustrate.    How  is  it  punctuated? 

258.  What  is  the  difference  between  a  transitive  and  an  in- 
transitive verb?    Can  the  same  verb  be  sometimes  transitive  and 
sometimes  intransitive?    Give  as  many  examples  as  you  can  of  this. 

269.  What  is  the  direct  object  of  a  verb?  the  indirect  object? 
Illustrate. 

260.  Can  any  verb  take  more  than  one  direct  object?    Illustrate. 

261.  Can  any  part  of  speech  except  a  verb  take  a  direct  object? 
Illustrate. 

262.  In  what  case  is  a  direct  object?    Is  the  objective  case  ever 
used  for  a  subject?    Illustrate,  using  a  personal  or  relative  pronoun. 

263.  What  is  the  adverbial  use  of  the  noun?    Illustrate. 

264.  How  many  uses  of  substantives  have  you  found?    Make  a 
brief  summary  or  table  of  them. 

265.  How  many  classes  of  pronouns  are  there?     How  is  each 
used?    Illustrate. 

266.  Which  pronouns  are  used  for  connective  purposes?     Illus- 
trate. 

267.  What  is  the  difference  between  a  pronoun  and  a  pronomi- 


GRAMMAR  REVIEW  457 

nal  adjective?  What  words  may  be  sometimes  one  and  sometimes 
the  other?  What  part  of  speech  is  all?  any?  no?  nobody?  no  one? 
many?  each?  every?  some? 

268.  By  what  means  do  nouns  and  pronouns  change  their  form 
to  show  syntax?    Illustrate. 

269.  What  is  the  inflection  of  I?  who?  anybody?  whichever? 

270.  By  what  means  do  adjectives  and  adverbs  change  their  form, 
and  for  what  purpose?    Illustrate  irregular  comparisons. 

271.  By  what  means  do  verbs  change  their  forms,  and  for  what 
purpose?    Illustrate. 

272.  What  voices  may  a  verb  have?  tenses?  moods?    What  other 
changes  are  involved?    Illustrate. 

273.  Inflect  the  following  verbs  throughout:   please;  go;  have; 
be;  seem;  drink;  run;  begin;  dive;  prove. 

274.  What  different  names  can  you  apply  to  each  of  the  verbs 
named  in  273?    Which  express  action?  which  state  or  being?  which 
are  transitive?  which  intransitive?  which  is  the  copula?  which  a 
copulative  verb?  which  may  be  auxiliary? 

275.  What  is  the  difference  between  the  infinitive  and  the  finite 
verb?    In  what  moods  may  the  finite  verb  be  found? 

276.  What  is  the  sign  of  the  infinitive?     Is  the  infinitive  used 
commonly  without  its  sign?     Illustrate.     What  are  the  infinitive 
and  its  sign  taken  together  called?     How  is  the  infinitive  phrase 
used?    Illustrate  its  substantive,  adjective,  and  adverbial  uses. 

277.  How  is  the  participle  used?    Illustrate. 

278.  In  what  different  ways  is  the  subjunctive  used?    Illustrate 
the  subjunctive  of  desire.    Give  a  sentence  containing  a  subjunctive 
clause  of  condition,  and  one  containing  a  clause  of  concession. 

279.  What  is  meant  by  sequence  of  tenses?    Give  the  rule  and 
illustrate. 

280.  What  are  auxiliary  verbs?    Name  as  many  as  you  know. 

281.  What  different  kinds  of  conjunctions  do  you  know?    How 
is  each  used?    Illustrate. 

282.  Which  parts  of  speech  may  upon  occasion  be  used  as  nouns? 
Does  the  same  word  often  serve  as  several  different  parts  of  speech? 
Classify  cross,  round,  down. 

283.  Troublesome  Verbs : 

begin  began  begun 

blow  blew  blown 

break  broke  broken 

burst  burst  burst 

come  came  come 

dive  dived  dived 

drink  drank  drunk 

drown  drowned  drowned 


458 


APPENDIX  VII 


eat 
flow 

fly 

forget 

freeze 

get 

grow 

hang 

lay 

lead 

lie 

prove 

ring 

rise 

run 

see 

set 

show 


sit 

speak 

strike 


ate 


forgot 
froze 
got 
grew 
I  hung 


laid 

led 

lay 


rang 

rose 

ran 

saw 

set 

showed 

sang 

sank 

sat 

spoke 

struck 

swam 


flown 

forgotten 

frozen 

got 

grown 
{Hung 
\  hanged  (executed) 

laid 

led 

lain 


rung 

risen 

run 

seen 

set 

shown 

sung 

sunk 

sat 

spoken 

struck 


284.  Summary  of  the  Rules  for  Shall  and  Will. 

Statement  Question 


Futurity:  I,  we — shall,  should. 

You,  he,  she,  it  they — will, 


Resolve  or  promise 

of  the  speaker:      I,  we — will, 
Threat  or  command      would. 
of  the  speaker:     You,  he,  she,  it, 
they — shall, 
should. 


Answer  in- 
volving fu- 
turity: 


Answer  in- 
volving re- 
solve, 
threat,  or 
command: 


Shall,  should— I,  we? 
Shall,  should— you? 
Will,  would— he,  she,  it, 

they? 

Answer:    I,  we — shall, 

He,     she,    it, 

they — will. 


should. 

Will— you? 
Shall,  should— he,  she, 
it,  they? 

Answer:  I,  we — will, 

would. 

He,  she,  it, 
they — shall, 
should. 


SENTENCE  FAULTS  459 

286.  Will — I,  we?  would — I,  we?  are  used  only  when  mil 
or  would  is  quoted  from  another  question: 

"Will  you  stand  by  me?" 
"Will  I?    I  will." 

286.  Should  also  implies  general  obligation. 
You  should  wear  rubbers. 

287.  Would  also  expresses  habitual  action: 

He  would  touch  every  fence  post  as  he  passed  it. 
She  would  sit  by  the  window  all  day. 

288.  In  indirect  quotation,  after  a  verb  of  saying  in  the 
past  tense,  use  should  and  would  according  to  the  rules  for 
shall  and  will. 

VIII 
SENTENCE  FAULTS 

Predication 

289.  See  that  every  sentence  has  at  least  one  independent, 
finite  verb,  expressed  or  unmistakably  implied  in  the  con- 
text.   Criticize  and  correct  the  following: 

She  was  asked  to  sing.    Which  she  refused  to  do. 

There  are  two  roads  to  Westerham.  One  by  Brasted  and  one 
over  the  Common. 

To  resume  our  discussion.    I  believe  in  government  control. 

The  game  having  been  won  by  this  brilliant  play.  There  was 
great  excitement  among  the  fans. 

290.  It  is  bad  form  in  business  letters  to  omit  the  verb, 
even  when  it  is  exactly  implied,  as  in  "  Yours  at  hand  "... 
(cf.  p.  55). 

291.  Do  not  omit  the  verb  in  clauses  where  it  would  have 
to  be  supplied  in  a  different  form  or  with  a  different  mean- 
ing.   Criticize  and  correct  the  following: 

Letty  went  yesterday;  I  tomorrow. 
She  is  sixteen;  I  nineteen. 
I  think  so  and  always  have. 


460  APPENDIX  VIII 

Tense  Agreement 

292.  Keep  the  rule  for  sequence  of  tenses.    Do  not  mix 
past  and  present  except  for  particular  effects  in  dialogue. 

293.  Avoid  the  historical  present — that  is,  the  present 
used  to  describe  past  events.    Only  skilled  writers  can  use 
it  successfully. 

Voice 

294.  Do  not  without  good  reason  change  from  active  to 
passive  in  the  same  sentence.    Improve  the  following: 

They  assembled  at  Marty's,  and  an  impromptu  banquet  was 
arranged  there  in  his  honor. 

Agreement  of  Subject  and  Predicate 

295.  If  the  verb  used  with  a  collective  noun  expresses 
collective  action,  make  it  singular;  if  individual  action, 
plural. 

296.  But  do  not  in  the  same  passage  use  both  singular 
and  plural  verbs  to  agree  with  a  collective  noun.    Introduce 
other  nouns  if  necessary.    Correct  the  following: 

The  Confidential  Department  are  today  keeping  her  under  ob- 
servation. A  woman  of  this  kind  is  especially  dangerous,  owing  to 
her  ability  to  pass  in  any  class  of  society,  and  it  is  to  be  hoped  that 
the  Department  has  been  able  to  curtail  her  opportunities  for 
mischief. 

The  class  has  finished  its  work  and  have  now  gone  to  their 
homes. 

297.  After  a  collective  noun  in  the  singular  followed 
by  an  qf-phrase  containing  a  plural  or  collective  noun, 
use  a  singular  verb  when  the  group  is  regarded  collectively, 
a  plural  verb  when  the  individuals  composing  it  are  the 
real  subject  of  thought.    Justify  the  following,  and  give  as 
many  similar  examples  as  you  can: 

A  majority  of  the  club  members  smoke. 
The  majority  of  the  voters  favors  the  change. 

298.  With  a  noun  plural  in  form  but  singular  in  mean- 
ing, use  the  verb  in  the  singular.    Decide  whether  or  not 
the  following  are  correct: 


SENTENCE  FAULTS  461 

Mathematics  is  a  science. 
Five  dollars  is  cheap  for  that  book. 
Three  times  nine  is  twenty-seven. 
Fourteen  and  five  makes  nineteen. 
Bread  and  milk  tastes  good. 

Add  other  examples. 

299.  Use  a  plural  verb  with  a  plural  noun  introduced 
by  the  expletive  there.    Justify  the  following: 

There  are  more  where  these  came  from. 
"There's  many  a  slip  .  .  ." 

Give  other  examples. 

300.  When  the  members  of  a  compound  subject  refer 
to  the  same  person  or  thing,  use  the  verb  in  the  singular. 

This  scholar  and  gentleman  is  a  high-minded  man. 

301.  When   to   a   subject   substantive   in   the   singular 
number  another  is  joined  by  means  of  with,  together  with, 
as  well  as,  etc.,  use  the  verb  in  the  singular.     Correct  the 
following : 

The  fact  that  building  materials  have  increased  40  per  cent  to- 
gether with  a  steady  increase  in  the  demand  for  labor  also  are  re- 
garded as  reasons  for  the  slump  in  home  building. 

302.  When   a  plural   noun  stands   between  a  singular 
subject  and  its  predicate,  be  careful  to  keep  the  verb  still 
singular: 

The  price  of  these  peaches  is  fifty  cents. 
Each  of  these  books  costs  a  dollar. 

303.  In  an  essential  relative  clause  attached  to  such  a 
phrase  as  "  one  of  the  best,"  the  antecedent  of  the  relative 
pronoun  is  plural.     Make  the  verb  plural,  or — in  many 
cases,    preferably — condense   the   clause   to   a   participial 
phrase: 

This  is  one  of  the  best  books  that  have  ever  been  printed. 
Or:  This  is  one  of  the  best  books  ever  printed. 

Cite  and  discuss  as  many  similar  examples  as  possible. 


462  APPENDIX  VIII 

304.  Avoid  bringing  together  a  subject  and  a  predicate 
noun  which  are  not  of  the  same  number.    When,  however, 
you  cannot  avoid  this  situation,  be  sure  that  your  verb 
agrees   with   the  subject,   not  with  the  predicate  noun. 
Criticize  and  correct  the  following: 

The  best  of  all  the  crops  (cf.  301)  in  the  district  are  potatoes. 
Liberty  Bonds  is  a  good  investment. 

305.  If  a  compound  subject  consists  of  singular  sub- 
stantives connected  by  or,  nor,  either  ...  or,  neither  .  .  . 
nor,  the  verb  should  be  in  the  singular. 

Give  ten  examples  of  correct  agreement  of  this  kind. 

306.  With  pronouns  the  verb  must  agree  in  person  as 
well  as  in  number  with  the  subject  to  which  it  is  nearest: 

Either  you  or  7  am  to  blame. 
Either  you  or  she  is  to  blame. 

But  it  is  better  to  reconstruct  the  sentence. 

Either  you  are  to  blame,  or  7  am. 
Either  you  are  to  blame,  or  she  is. 

Pronouns,  Number 

307.  Use  singular  pronouns  to  refer  to  collective  nouns 
when  the  emphasis  is  on  the  group,  plural  pronouns  when 
it  is  on  the  individuals  that  make  up  the  group  (cf.  297 
above);  but  keep  throughout  a  passage  the  number  used 
at  first: 

Write  a  paragraph  describing  a  day  on  the  jury.    Use  the  nouns 
jury  and  jurymen,  and  keep  the  proper  agreement  for  the  pronouns. 

It 

308.  Distinguish  between  its  =  possessive,  and  it's  =  it  is: 

It's  a  long  way  up  the  hill;  but  the  view  from  its  top  is  splendid. 

309.  Avoid  the  promiscuous  use  of  it,  with  and  without 
an  antecedent.     Correct  the  following,   using  nouns   as 
needed: 

It  was  sad  to  hear  his  account  of  it;  he  knew  I  would  not  talk  of 
it,  but  he  insisted  upon  it  that  it  was  necessary  to  tell  all  about  it. 


SENTENCE  FAULTS  463 

Pronouns,  Indefinite 

310.  Each,  either,  every,  neither,  anyone,  everyone,  no  one  are 
grammatically  singular. 

311.  Likewise  singular  is  the  indefinite  noun  a  person. 

312.  None  is  either  singular  or  plural: 

None  of  his  friends  was  present. 
None  are  better  than  my  friends. 

313.  The  use  of  a  possessive  adjective  with  an  indefinite 
pronoun  or  adjective  in  the  singular  involves  a  special  diffi- 
culty: their  is   obviously   wrong;   his   alone   or  her  alone 
does  not  provide  for   both   sexes;  his  or  her  is  awkward. 
This  difficulty  you  may  deal  with  in  several  ways: 

(1)  By  making  the  indefinite  pronoun  or  adjective  plu- 
ral, £nd  using  their: 

All  people  like  their  own  way. 

(2)  By  making  his  stand  for  both  sexes: 
A  person  likes  his  own  way. 

(3)  By  avoiding  the  construction: 

It  is  always  pleasant  to  have  one's  own  way. 

Practice  the  use  of  the  possessive  adjective  with  each  of 
the  pronouns  listed  hi  310,  above. 

Pronouns,  Case 

314.  The  case  of  a  pronoun  depends  entirely  upon  its 
syntax;  it  may  or  may  not  be  in  the  same  construction  as 
its  antecedent. 

I  saw  a  man  who  knows  you. 
I  saw  a  man  whom  you  know. 

Predicate  Complement 

315.  After  a  finite  form  of  the  copula  or  a  copulative 
verb,  a  pronoun  used  as  predicate  complement  should  be  in 
the  nominative  case: 

It  is  7 — we — he — she — they. 
It  seemed  to  be  they. 


464  APPENDIX  VIII 

316.  After  an  infinitive  with  a  subject,  a  pronoun  used  as 
predicate  complement  should  be  in  the  objective  case. 

He  took  her  to  be  me. 

You  believed  us  to  be  them? 

Object 

317.  When  two  pronouns,  or  a  noun  and  a  pronoun,  are 
used  as  the  object  of  a  verb  or  of  a  preposition,  see  that 
the  pronouns  are  in  the  objective  case: 

This  is  between  you  and  me. 

He  told  him  and  her. 

It  is  hard  for  mother  and  me. 


Pronouns  Appositive 

318.  Put  a  pronoun  used  as  an  appositive  in  the  same 
case  as  the  substantive  with  which  it  is  in  apposition: 

319.  The  commonest  expression  in  which  this  principle 
is  disregarded  is  the  colloquial  "  Let's  you  and  I  go!  " 
This  has  become  so  much  the  standard  form  that  some 
will  perhaps  defend  it  as  an  idiom. 

This  was  true  of  some — certainly  of  her  and  me. 

Pronouns  in  Clauses 

320.  In  an  indirect  question,  distinguish  between   the 
relative  as  subject  and  as  object  of  the  dependent  verb: 

He  asked  who  was  going. 
He  asked  whom  I  meant. 

321.  After  a  verb  of  saying  or  thinking,  distinguish  be- 
tween the  relative  as  subject  and  as  object  of  the  dependent 
verb: 

Clara,  who  I  thought  was  in  Europe,  came  home  yesterday. 
The  man  whom  I  thought  /  had  conquered,  had  conquered  me. 
Who  did  they  say  met  them? 
Whom  did  they  say  they  had  met  ? 

322.  The  case  of  the  indefinite  relative  is  determined  by 
its  use  in  the  relative  clause. 


SENTENCE  FAULTS  465 

Appoint  whoever  will  be  best  for  the  place. 
Appoint  whom  you  please. 

323.  In  an  elliptical  clause  completing  a  comparison,  see 
that  the  pronoun  is  in  the  case  demanded  by  the  syntax: 

She  is  taller  than  I  (/  subject  of  am  understood). 

I  like  him  better  than  her  (her  object  of  like  understood). 

Is  he  as  happy  as  she  (is)? 

324.  Than  whom,  however,  is  an  exception  established 
by  usage  as  permissible: 

This  is  Sarah,  than  whom  there  is  no  better  cook. 

325.  In  a  relative  clause    in  which  the  pronoun  is  the 
object  of  a  preposition,  be  careful  not  to  omit  the  preposi- 
tion: 

He  left  by  the  way  by  which  he  came. 

326.  When  a  compound  preposition  such  as    as  to,  in  re- 
gard to,  with  respect  to,  governs  a  relative  or  interrogative 
clause,  do  not  forget  that  the  pronoun  is  still  subject  of  the 
clause.    Keep  it  in  the  nominative  case: 

Not:  There  was  a  quarrel  as  to  whom  came  out  ahead; 
Bui:  There  was  a  quarrel  as  to  who  came  out  ahead. 

Omission  of  Relative 

327.  Do  not  omit  the  relative  pronoun  introducing  a 
clause  after  an  expletive: 

There  were  ten  men  who  shouted. 

And  who 

328.  Do  not  use  and  before  who  or  which  when  no  rela- 
tive has  preceded: 

Not:  He  is  a  good  actor  and  who  has  been  very  successful; 
But:    He  is  a  good  actor  who  has  been  very  successful. 

Shifting 

329.  Do  not  shift  from  who  or  which  to  that  in  parallel 
clauses: 


466  APPENDIX  VIII 

Not:  A  man  whom  you  can  trust  and  that  everybody  likes; 
But:  A  man  whom  you  can  trust  and  whom  everybody  likes. 

That  and  Which 

330.  Use  that  in  essential  relative  clauses  except: 

(1)  When  there  is  a  break  in  continuity  just  after  the 
pronoun. 

(2)  When  another  that  stands  near. 
In  these  cases  use  which  or  who. 

Possessive  Case 

331.  The  possessive  case  should  be  restricted  to  indicate 
actual   ownership  by   persons   or   their   agency   in   some 
action. 


OAphrase 

332.  Use  an  qf-phrase,  not  a  possessive,  to  show  the 
object  of  an  action: 

Not:  Caesar's  murder  was  a  crime; 
But:  The  murder  of  Ccesar  was  a  crime. 

333.  Instead  of  the  possessive  form  used  with  the  name 
of  a  thing  to  indicate  a  part  of  it,  use  an  o/-phrase: 

Not:  It  lay  in  the  river's  bed; 
But:  It  lay  in  the  bed  of  the  river. 

334.  Exceptions  to  this  rule  are  a  few  familiar  time- 
phrases  : 

a  day's  journey,  an  hour's  delay,  a  month's  holiday,  a  year's  work, 
etc. 


Adjectives  and  Adverbs 

335.  If  the  action  of  the  verb  is  modified,  an  adverb 
must  be  used;  but  if  the  verb  merely  links  a  modifier  with  a 
substantive  to  express  a  quality  or  the  result  of  an  action, 
an  adjective  must  be  used.  Distinguish  between  adverbs 
and  adjectives  in  the  following: 


SENTENCE  FAULTS  467 

He  looks  good. 

He  works  well. 

A  new  broom  sweeps  clean. 

Dig  the  well  deep. 

Dig  carefully. 

336.  The  words  ill  and  well,  as  applied  to  health,  are 
adjectives.     Thus:  "I  feel  well  "  refers  to  health,  "  I  feel 
good,"  to  morals;  but  in  each  case  the  predicate  comple- 
ment is  an  adjective.    "I  feel  bad,"  as  applied  to  health,  is 
correct,  but  on  account  of  its  associations  is  avoided  even 
by  those  who  use  the  incorrect,  "  I  feel  good." 

Leisurely,  orderly,  cleanly,  and  a  few  other  adjectives 
have  the  ending  ly.  Perhaps  the  colloquial  badly  in  "  I 
feel  badly  "  belongs  with  them;  it  seems  to  imply  some- 
thing less  than  "  I  feel  ill." 

Placing  of  Adverbs 

337.  Such  words  as  almost,   always,   ever,   hardly,  just, 
merely,  nearly,  never,  only,  quite,  scarcely,  etc.,  should  al- 
ways be  placed  next  to  and,  if  possible,  before  the  word  or 
word  group  that  they  modify. 

Practise  the  formation  of  many  short  sentences  in  which  these 
adverbs  are  placed  in  their  proper  position. 

Negation 

338.  Do  not  use  more  than  one  negative  adverb  to  modify 
the  same  word: 

Not:  I  couldn'f  never  tell; 
But:  I  could  never  tell; 
Or:  I  couldn't  ever  tell. 

339.  Two  negatives  may  be  used  together  to  make  an 
affirmative  by  denying  the  contrary. 

There  was  no  one  who  did  not  protest  =  Every  one  protested. 

340.  Do  not  use  not  with  the  adverbs  hardly,  scarcely, 
and  only: 


468  APPENDIX  VIII 

Not:  I  can't  scarcely  see; 

But:  I  can  scarcely  see. 

Not:  I  haven't  any  spare  time  only  on  Sunday; 

Bui:  I  have  no  spare  time  except  on  Sunday. 

Participles 

341.  A  participle  must  be  regarded  as  an  adjective  and 
must  modify  a  substantive  expressed  in  the  same  sentence: 

Not :  Opening  the  door,  the  weather  was  found  to  be  very  cold ; 
But:  Opening  the  door,  we  (or  whoever  opened  the  door)  found 
that  the  weather  was  very  cold. 

342.  Apparent  violations  of  this  usage  occur  with  cer- 
tain words  in  -ing  which  form  phrases  used  as  prepositions : 

According  to  all  I  hear,  he  was  guilty. 

Owing  to  lack  of  money  he  abandoned  the  suit. 

Because  due  is  often  a  synonym  of  owing,  many  careless  writers 
and  speakers  use  due  to  as  a  phrasal  preposition;  but  this  is  a  matter 
of  idiom,  and  due  to  is  not  yet  recognized  as  correct  in  such  expres- 


Gerund  Phrase 

343.  An  introductory  gerund  phrase  must  refer  to  the 
subject  of  the  clause  of  which  the  phrase  itself  is  a  modifier: 

Not:  In  striking  a  match,  the  panther  escaped   (because  here 
the  panther  is  represented  as  striking  the  match) ; 
But:  In  striking  a  match,  /  let  the  panther  escape. 

Elliptical  Subordinate  Clause 

344.  An  introductory  elliptical  clause  must  refer  to  the 
subject  of  the  following  verb: 

Not:  While  laughing  at  this,  ihefish  got  away; 
But:  While  laughing  at  this,  we  lost  our  fish. 

346.  Elliptical  clauses  should  be  made  complete  when- 
ever there  is  the  slightest  danger  of  misconstruction  or 
ambiguity. 

While  we  were  laughing  at  this,  the  fish  got  away. 


SENTENCE  FAULTS  469 

Sign  of  the  Infinitive 

346.  Repeat  the  sign  of  the  infinitive  before  each  member 
of  a  series  of  infinitive  phrases  whenever  they  are  separated 
by  intervening  words. 

The  problem  is  to  release  these  men  from  the  service,  to  return 
them  to  their  homes,  and  to  restore  them  to  their  places  in  the  social 
order. 

The  Split  Infinitive  : 

347.  The  placing  of  any  word  or  phrase  between  to  and 
its  infinitive  has  usually  been  avoided  by  good  writers  of 
all  periods,  and  writers  who  wish  to  avoid  criticism  will 
do  well  to  follow  this  usage;  but  careful  writers  have  often 
violated  it  to  secure  clearness  or  emphasis  or  even  rhythm: 

"It  was  in  the  nature  of  a  stroke  to  partly  take  away  the  use 
of  a  man's  limbs." — George  Eliot. 

"Without  permitting  himself  to  actually  mention  the  name." — 
Matthew  Arnold. 

"Send  five  souls  more  to  just  precede  his  own." — Browning. 

Tense  of  Infinitive 

348.  The  infinitive  used  to  complete  the  meaning  of  a 
verb  should  be  in  the  present  tense,  unless  it  represents 
action  or  state  as  completed  prior  to  the  action  or  state 
expressed  by  the  verb  on  which  it  depends: 

Not:  I  should  have  been  glad  to  have  seen  you  at  that  time; 

But:  I  should  have  been  glad  [before  now]  to  see  you  [at  that  time]; 

Or:  I  should  have  been  glad  to  have  seen  you  before  I  left. 

Comparison 

349.  Comparisons  must  be  carried  out  completely  and 
exactly;  see  350-355. 

350.  Repeat  the  verb  after  than  whenever  there  is  the 
slightest  ambiguity  as  to  the  construction  of  the  following 
substantive: 

Not:  Grace  likes  me  better  than  you; 

But:  '     than  she  does  you; 

Or:         "       "        "       "        "    you  do. 


470  APPENDIX  VIII 

351.  Prefer  the  awkwardness  of  the  phrases  as  that  of, 
than  that  of,  to  inexactness  of  comparison. 

Not:  The  silk  in  my  dress  is  stronger  than  my  mother's  [what? 
silk  or  dress?]; 

But:  The  silk  in  my  dress  is  stronger  than  that  [silk]  in  my  mother's 
[dress]. 

352.  When  than  and  as  are  used  in  a  double  comparison, 
name  the  second  person  or  thing  in  the  comparison  after 
the  first  occurrence  of  the  adjective: 

Not:  He  is  as  tall,  if  not  taller,  than  his  brother; 
But:  He  is  as  tall  as  his  brother,  if  not  taller. 
Not:  This  boat  is  longer  and  as  wide  as  that; 
But:  This  boat  is  longer  than  that,  and  as  wide. 

353.  The  names  of  objects  compared  must  be  kept  in  the 
same  construction: 

Not:  He  preferred  tramping  to  ride  in  a  stuffy  oar. 
But:  He  preferred  tramping  to  riding  in  a  stuffy  car. 

354.  The  substantive  object  must  be  of  the  same  class 
as  the  substantive  compared: 

Not:  The  Russians  are  the  best  fighters  of  all  countries  [neither 
Russians  nor  fighters  belong  to  the  class  countries]; 

But:  Of  all  nationalities,  the  Russians  are  the  best  fighters. 

355.  When  an  adjective  in  the  superlative  degree  modi- 
fies a  noun  in  the  plural  and  one  in  the  singular,  place  the 
noun  immediately  after  the  first  use  of  the  adjective: 

Not:  One  of  the  best,  if  not  the  best,  apples  is  the  russet; 
But:  One  of  the  best  apples,  if  not  the  best,  is  the  russet. 

Other 

356.  In  comparing  a  member  of  a  class  with  other  mem- 
bers of  the  same  class,  use  other,  or  an  equivalent  word;  but 
do  not  use  it  when  the  comparison  does  not  include  mem- 
bers of  the  class: 

Not:  Lincoln  was  greater  than  any  president;  [Lincoln  belongs  to 
the  class  presidents}. 

But:  Lincoln  was  greater  than  any  other  president. 


SENTENCE  FAULTS  471 

Not:  Lincoln  was  greater  than  any  other  general  of  the  War  [Lin- 
coln does  not  belong  to  the  class  generals]; 

But:  Lincoln  was  greater  tlian  any  general  of  the  War. 

Not:  The  dwarf  was  stronger  than  any  other  man  of  twice  his  size 
[because  other  includes  the  dwarf  in  the  class  of  men  of  twice  his  own 
size]; 

But:  The  dwarf  was  stronger  than  any  man  of  twice  his  size 
[because  the  class  is  men  of  twice  the  dwarf's  size], 

357.  Do  not  use  other,  or  an  equivalent  word,  with  the 
superlative  degree  unless  some  other  members  of  the  class 
have  been  excluded : 

Not:  Ivanhoe  is  the  best  of  all  Scott's  other  novels  [unless  some  of 
the  novels  have  been  excluded  from  the  comparison]; 

But:  Ivanhoe  is  the  best  of  all  Scott's  novels. 

Not:  Socrates  was  the  greatest  of  all  other  teachers  [because  other 
excludes  Socrates] ; 

But:  Socrates  was  the  greatest  of  all  teachers. 

That 

358.  Do  not  use  that  alone  to  express  comparison: 

Not:  I  was  that  tired  I  couldn't  walk  a  step  further; 
But:  I  was  so  tired  that  I  couldn't  walk  a  step  further. 
Not:  I  was  that  tired; 
But:  I  was  very  tired. 

Better 

359.  In  comparing  only  two  persons  or  things,  use  the 
comparative  degree: 

Not:  Of  these  two  books,  Kenilworth  is  the  best; 
But:  Of  these  two  books,  Kenilworth  is  the  better. 

Any 

360.  Do  not  use  any  with  the  superlative  degree;  use  all: 

Not:  Oranges  are  the  best  fruit  of  any; 
But:  Oranges  are  the  best  fruit  of  all. 

So 

361.  Do  not  use  so  or  such  absolutely: 

Not:  The  lake  is  so  pretty! 
Not:  She  is  such  a  nice  girl! 


472  APPENDIX  VIII 

Repetition  of  Demonstrative 

362.  The    article,    possessive    pronoun,    or    pronominal 
adjective  should  be  repeated  before  each   member  of  a 
series  of  adjectives  or  nouns  when  each  member  refers  to  a 
different  person  or  thing.     It  should  be  used  only  before 
the  first  member  when  all  refer  to  the  same  person  or  thing: 

I  have  a  pink  and  a  white  tulip  (two). 
I  have  a  pink  and  white  tulip  (one). 
His  cousin  and  his  classmate  (two  persons). 
His  cousin  and  classmate  (one  person). 

363.  But  the  demonstrative  is  often  repeated  for  emphasis 
when  the  same  person  or  thing  is  meant: 

He  is  a  gentleman  and  a  scholar. 

This  son  and  this  brother  deserted  his  mother  and  sister. 

Coordination 

364.  Do  not  coordinate  different  parts  of  the  verb: 

Not:  I  began  to  laugh  (infin.)  and  crying  (gerund)  at  once; 

But:  I  began  to  laugh  (infin.)  and  cry  (infin.)  at  once; 

Or:  I  began  laughing  (gerund)  and  crying  (gerund)  at  once. 

365.  Do   not  coordinate   different   classes   of   pronouns 
referring  to  the  same  antecedent: 

Not:  On  the  branch  was  a  bird  which  I  had  seen  before  but  could 
not  identify  it; 

But:  On  the  branch  was  a  bird  which  I  had  seen  before  but  could 
not  identify.  (Here  but  connects  the  verbs.) 

Or:  On  the  branch  was  a  bird  which  I  had  seen  before  but  which 
I  could  not  identify.  (Here  but  connects  the  relative  pronouns  and 
throws  more  emphasis  on  each  clause  than  when  it  connects  the 
verbs.) 

366.  Do    not   coordinate   a   subordinate   clause   and   a 
phrase : 

Not :  A  man  of  icealth  (phrase)  and  who  has  brains  (subord.  clause) 
can  do  much  good; 

But:  A  man  of  wealth  and  brains  can  do  much  good. 
Or:  A  man  of  wealth  who  has  brains  can  do  much. 


SENTENCE  FAULTS  473 

367.  Do  not  coordinate  a  substantive  and  a  clause: 

Not:  That  he  had  money  and  his  experience  were  both  facts  in  his 
favor; 

But:  His  money  and  his  experience  were  both  in  his  favor. 

368.  Do  not  coordinate  an  abstract  and  a  verbal  noun: 
Not:  Your  sympathy  and  your  seeing  how  the  case  stands  are  a 

Your  sympathy  and  your  grasp  of  the  situation  are  a  help. 


help; 
But: 


Correlative  Conjunctions 

369.  Place   correlatives   immediately   before  the   words 
that  they  connect: 

Not:  He  would  neither  tell  mother  nor  John; 

But:  He  would  tell  neither  mother  nor  John. 

Not:  They  not  only  laugh,  at  his  jokes,  but  also  at  his  expression. 

But:  They  laugh,  not  only  at  his  jokes,  but  also  at  his  expression. 

Conjunctions 

370.  Do  not  connect  a  relative  clause  to  its  principal 
clause  by  and  or  but: 

Not:  He  quickly  learned  Spanish,  but  which  he  as  quickly  forgot; 
But:  He  quickly  learned  Spanish,  which  he  as  quickly  forgot. 

371.  Do  not  connect  by  and  or  but  a  modifier  that  fol- 
lows a  noun  with  one  that  precedes  it: 

Not:  He  had  many  an  amusing  story  and  referring  to  the  Senator; 
But:  He  had  many  an  amusing  story  referring  to  the  Senator. 

372.  Do  not  connect  a  series  of  principal  clauses  by  and 
or  but  or  for;  subordinate  the  less  important: 

He  went  to  New  York  and  remained  there  ten  years,  for  he  was 
tired  of  living  in  a  small  town,  but  he  had  not  been  long  in  Center- 
ville. 

This  childish  type  of  sentence  in  which  one  idea  is  tagged  on  to 
another,  without  regard  to  their  relationship  or  importance,  must 
be  guarded  against  with  special  care. 

373.  Do  not  make  a  series  of  which  the  last  two  members 
are  connected  by  and,  if  these  members  are  different  parts 
of  speech: 


474  APPENDIX  VIII 

Not:  He  is  red-haired  (adj.),  of  ruddy  complexion  (adj.  phrase), 
and  walks  (verb)  with  a  limp; 

But:  He  is  red-haired  (adj.),  ruddy  (adj.)  of  complexion,  and 
lame  (adj.); 

Or:  He  is  red-haired  and  ruddy  of  complexion,  and  he  walks 
with  a  limp. 

374.  Do  not  repeat  the  conjunction  that  when  it  is  sep- 
arated by  modifiers  from  the  subject  and  predicate  that 
it  introduces: 

It  is  very  hard  that  after  all  the  time  I  have  spent  in  preparation 
and  all  the  energy  I  have  given  to  finding  ways  and  means,  [that] 
the  project  should  be  abandoned. 

375.  When  you  write  and  that  in  a  sentence,  look  back 
to  see  whether  you  have  an  earlier  that.    If  not,  insert  one. 

376.  Do  not  use  the  adverbs  so  and  then  as  coordinating 
conjunctions;  either  add  the  conjunction  and  or  but,  or 
reconstruct: 

Not:  He  had  nothing  to  do,  so  he  came  early; 
But:  As  he  had  nothing  to  do,  he  came  early. 
Not:  I  had  my  luncheon,  then  I  went  shopping; 
But:  After  luncheon  I  went  shopping. 

Prepositions 

377.  Repeat   the   preposition   and   article   before   each 
member  of  a  series  of  substantives  except  where  the  sub- 
stantives form  a  single  idea. 

The  laws  of  the  English  and  of  the  French  differ  widely  (two 
sets  of  laws). 

It  is  as  fixed  as  the  laws  of  the  Medes  and  Persians  (one  set  of 
laws). 

378.  When   different   prepositions   are   required   before 
the  same  substantive,  the  first  preposition  must  not  be 
omitted  or  left  dangling: 

Not:  He  has  no  longer  any  faith  or  love  for  his  son; 
Or:  He  has  no  longer  any  faith  in  or  love  for  his  son; 
But:  He  has  no  longer  any  faith  in  his  son,  or  love  for  him. 

379.  The  old  rule  that  a  preposition  should  not  end  a 
sentence  is  no  longer  regarded. 

That  is  the  house  he  died  in. 


SENTENCE  FAULTS  475 

Clauses 

380.  A  subordinate  substantive  clause  used  as  subject  or 
predicate  complement  should  be  introduced  by  a  conjunction: 

Not:  I  hurt  my  foot  is  the  reason  why  I  am  late; 
But:  That  I  hurt  my  foot  is  the  reason  why  I  am  late; 
Or:  The  reason  why  I  am  late  is  that  I  hurt  my  foot. 
But  still  better,  because  more  direct,  is: 
I  am  late  because  I  hurt  my  foot. 

381.  Do  not  use  a  clause  introduced  by  when  or  where  as 
predicate  complement: 

Not:  The  most  interesting  part  of  the  book  is  where  the  duel  is 
The  most  interesting  part  of  the  book  is  the  account  of  the 


fought; 
But: 


duel. 

Not:  A  commune  is  when  property  is  held  in  common; 

But:  A  commune  is  an  organization  in  which  property  is  held 
in  common. 

382.  Do  not  leave  a  clause  unfinished  and  continue  the 
sentence  with  another: 

Not:  The  belief  that  I  should  succeed,  in  fact,  I  had  no  thought 
of  failure. 

SENTENCES  FOR  CORRECTION 

383.  The  following  faulty  sentences  are  not  artificial 
examples    manufactured    to    illustrate    bad    writing    but 
genuine  quotations  from  various  sources  —  reputable  news- 
papers, magazines,  and  books.     The  teacher  or  student 
can  easily  find  others  in  current  publications.     The  col- 
lection and  criticism  of  such  examples  will  aid  greatly,  not 
only  in  developing  the  critical  faculty,  but  also  in  pro- 
moting variety  and  flexibility  of  style. 

Criticize  and  rewrite  the  following: 

Some  of  these  men  are  most  interesting  and  I  feel  I'd  enjoy  a 
talk  with  them  others  very  different  and  glad  to  see  them  depart. 

The  President  was  at  the  game  and  many  notables  from  all  over 
the  world  and  there  was  much  enthusiasm  the  President's  party 
changing  from  the  Navy  to  the  Army  side  as  the  game  progressed. 


476  APPENDIX  VHI 

The  chairman  called  today  and  what  an  insignificant  fellow  he 
is  and  to  think  he  was  offered  the  ambassadorship  what  a  fall  down 
for  our  nation  from  the  rank  of  our  former  representatives  there 
had  he  accepted. 

He  probably  sent  his  telegram  on  account  of  public  opinion  there 
in  Mexico  and  that  it  was  best  for  him  so  to  do. 

Think  of  the  countless  libraries  that  he  has  given  to  the  poeple 
of  this  country,  and  the  educational  advantages  of  which  will  con- 
tinue long  after  he  is  dead  and  his  name  will  be  a  household  word  for 
many  years. 

This  by  the  way  is  my  birthday  forty-nine  years  old  and  seems 
such  a  short  time  ago  that  I  was  entering  the  practice  of  law. 

What  a  pleasant  tempered  fellow  he  is  hardly  if  ever  out  of  sorts 
which  is  the  more  remarkable  when  one  sees  the  trying  things 
before  him  each  day. 

The  resignation  was  brought  about  owing  to  differences  of  prin- 
ciples between  Krylenko  and  the  council  of  people's  commissaries 
as  well  as  a  disagreement  with  the  latest  actions  of  the  council. 

This  permits  a  workman  to  quit  his  job  for  a  variety  of  reasons. 
Among  them  unpleasant  language  used  by  the  boss  toward  the 
workman  or  any  of  his  family.  If  the  laborer  thinks  the  boss  is 
not  acting  in  an  "honorable  manner"  or  in  a  way  to  bring  dis- 
credit to  the  latter  the  laborer  can  quit  and  ask  and  get  three  months' 
pay. 

As  regards  the  leaky  cans  being  packed  at  night  time  that  cer- 
tainly is  all  rot.  The  fact  of  the  matter  is  we  have  an  enemy  in 
our  camp  up  there  as  the  quartermaster's  department  knew  here 
in  Omaha  that  they  were  going  to  receive  leaky  cans  before  they 
were  received,  getting  a  letter  from  Sioux  City  stating  to  examine 
certain  marked  cases,  which  he  did  and  found  four  leakers  in  one 
of  the  cases.  So  it  is  evident  from  this  that  we  are  harboring  an 
enemy  at  that  point. 

Washington  today  supplies  by  far  the  greater  volume  of  news 
matter  of  any  world  capital. 

Some  systematic  effort  to  instill  this  in  the  hearts  and  minds 
of  all  peoples  affiliated  with  the  Germans  will  be  necessary  owing 
to  the  general  war  weariness.  That  definite  plans  possibly  were 
framed  in  Berlin  looking  to  this  end  is  extremely  likely. 

He  is  a  constant  drinker  of  brandy,  and  must  have  a  strong  head 
to  keep  that  up  for  long. 

He  was  more  of  a  reserved,  but  sturdy,  quick  acting  person. 

They  stand  side  by  side,  evidently  quite  oblivious  and  indifferent 
to  the  folk  about  them.  On  going  up  to  town  on  a  July  day  it 
seems  much  hotter  there,  so  much  so  that  one  pants  for  air. 

Thoughtlessly  turning  over  a  boulder,  there  was  ants  beneath  it. 
The  men  had  laid  out  all  night  in  the  cold. 

It  was  this  circumstance  that  brought  about  the  downfall  of  the 


SENTENCE  FAULTS  477 

cabinet  of  this  very  honest  and  capable  professor  of  mathematics, 
but  who  as  a  statesman  is  altogether  lamentable. 

An  attempt  was  made  by  the  minister  to  recover  the  check  for 
Duval,  on  the  ground  that  he  was  acquainted  both  with  the  latter 
and  with  the  man  in  whose  favor  it  was  drawn,  a  certain  Vigo, 
editor  of  a  paper  of  insidiously  pacifist  tendencies,  and  which  sub- 
sequent developments  showed  to  have  been  subsidized. 

If  convicted,  the  law  may  sentence  him  to  death. 

His  voice  stopped — exactly  like  when  you  hit  a  neighbor's 
gramophone  with  a  well-aimed  brick,  the  same  instant  silence,  and 
the  rustle  of  the  paper  stopped,  and  everything  was  still.  .  .  . 

In  the  main  he  followed  his  regular  sermon,  which  was  devoted 
principally  against  vice  and  intemperance. 

The  jam  became  so  severe  that  a  number  of  women  suffered 
slight  bruises  in  the  lobby. 

They  have  not,  because  they  could  not,  go  further  than  generali- 
ties. 

They  expect  all  controversies  to  be  settled  by  the  other  side  ad- 
hering to  their  view. 

I  am  kind  of  interested  in  this. 

Though  but  young  trees,  there  was  a  coating  of  fallen  needles 
under  the  firs. 

Mr.  and  Mrs.  Elmer  Reed  eat  a  fat  squirrel  dinner  Sunday  with 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Joshua  Cook  and  they  were  shot  by  Mr.  Cook. 

The  cheering  for  the  queen  was  full-throated  and  with  no  sign 
of  doubt,  because  of  her  Bavarian  birth  and  upbringing — she  is 
looked  on  as  a  Belgian  queen  and  nothing  else. 

Popular  opinions  there  are  stifled  and  substituted  by  made-to- 
order  comment  from  the  government. 

Once  you  wish  to  identify  these  flowers,  there  is  none  that  es- 
capes you. 

He  then  concluded  by  asking  whom  that  Partridge  was  whom 
he  had  called  a  worthless  fellow. 

The  President  was  mislead. 

As  to  what  he  learned  through  his  talks  with  officials  is  not 
divulged. 

The  officer  is  delegated  with  the  task  of  haranguing  his  men. 

These  charges  were  circulated  with  a  view  of  making  the  social- 
ists restless. 

What  a  sight  to  see  so  many  people  together,  that  was  a  greater 
spectacle  than  the  game  by  far  to  me. 

Having  a  husband  who  had  shown  nothing  but  the  lowest  depths 
of  brutishness  shortly  after  a  hasty  marriage  of  three  years  before, 
Mrs.  Blink  had  come  to  look  upon  George,  his  clean-cut  manly 
nature,  his  sharp  black  eyes,  and  broad  forehead  as  a  type  of  the 
best  in  masculine  nature,  and  was  horrified  beyond  measure  to 
behold  him  lying  in  the  street. 


478  APPENDIX  VIII 

This  is  the  woman  that  the  priest  pronounced  his  fond  benedic- 
tion upon,  and  afterwards  his  own  Methodist  parson  had  done  the 
same,  for  she  was  Catholic  and  he  was  Methodist,  and  their  agree- 
ment was  to  allow  each  one  to  keep  their  own  religion. 

His  nature,  however,  was  the  opposite  of  that  of  his  wife,  and  a 
more  sad  example  of  the  hopelessness  of  our  present  marriage  sys- 
tem could  not  well  be  found. 

The  censorship  established  at  Columbus  and  Hachits  have  pre- 
vented correspondents  from  sending  news. 

Coming  back  to  the  place  after  a  journey,  the  brilliant  light  is 
very  striking. 

The  mediation  board  is  hard  at  work  and  have  conferences  each 
day. 

What  a  fine,  democratic  fellow  he  is,  and  whose  time  is  up  and 
soon  to  leave. 

The  Union  officials  said  that  immediately  the  Chairman  recog- 
nized the  organization,  they  could  furnish  labor. 

Yesterday  the  judge  reinstated  the  case,  after  scolding  the  at- 
torney, whom  he  declared  misrepresented  the  facts  to  him. 

He  found  one  of  his  horses  dead  as  he  was  sawing  wood  in  the 
stable. 

The  best  blood  of  the  country  are  in  these  cars. 

It  is  but  a  question  of  time  until  the  revolutionary  socialists  who 
compose  decidedly  the  most  powerful  party,  takes  the  reins  from 
the  hands  of  the  elements  in  Petrograd. 

The  power  of  the  opposition  parties  is  indicated  by  the  resigna- 
tion of  Premier  von  Seidler  during  the  past  week,  the  Poles  uniting 
against  the  provisional  budget,  imperilling  the  government  major- 
ity, Von  Seidler  resigned. 

My  country  and  my  country's  cause  command  my  highest  al- 
legiance, and  to  them  I  am  ready  to  make  every  sacrifice,  both 
personally  and  political. 

384.  The  following  extract  is  taken  without  change  from 
an  article  published  in  one  of  the  leading  American  news- 
papers. You  will  find  upon  examination  that  it  contains 
almost  every  type  of  sentence  error.  Rewrite  it,  one  sen- 
tence at  a  time.  Cut  out  all  provincialisms  and  all  the 
slang  that  is  not  picturesque. 

This  will  be  rambling  account  of  an  attempt  to  get  in  touch  with 
our  soldiers.  In  the  first  place  it  was  an  all  night  journey  into  the 
interior  of  France,  a  change  of  cars,  once  at  3  o'clock  in  the  morning 
and  the  other  at  6  o'clock,  both  of  the  changes  being  made  in  the 
dark,  and  to  add  to  the  thrill  of  the  journey,  being  near  the  fight- 
ing zone  and  the  inability  to  speak  a  single  word  of  French. 


SENTENCE  FAULTS      .  479 

RAILROADS   WELL  KEPT   UP 

Naturally  when  given  permission  to  visit  an  American  training 
camp,  I  elected  to  go  where  I  would  find  the  boys  from  home.  The 
American  officer  who  gave  the  military  pass  was  as  polite  and  as 
obliging  as  any  Frenchman  ever  thought  of  being.  He  thought  he 
was  giving  me  the  right  instructions  and  was  telling  me  where  to 
go  to  find  my  friends.  However,  the  camp  I  visited  was  nothing 
more  than  a  replace  division.  Yet  the  trip  was  not  without  its 
many  interesting  developments. 

The  first  thing  which  hits  a  visitor  to  France  in  the  eye,  and  brings 
home  to  one  with  a  crash,  is  how  lamentably  poor  is  our  much 
vaunted  railroad  system.  All  know  now  that  when  the  big  call 
came  and  the  railroads  were  put  to  the  test,  they  fell  to  pieces. 
Here  in  France,  after  four  years  of  war,  even  handling  double  the 
amount  of  freight  and  troops,  the  system  is  almost  perfect. 

When  a  call  was  made  at  headquarters  at  this  replace  division  or 
whatever  it  is  called  in  G.  O.  (general  orders) ,  I  found  many  officers 
and  friends  on  the  job  from  home  and  others  I  had  met  at  the  various 
American  camps  in  the  States. 

SOLDIERS  VISIT  VILLAGES 

I  met  one  officer,  a  former  captain  of  a  national  guard  on  the 
Mexican  border  last  year,  doing  his  bit  provost  marshaling.  Where 
the  troops  were  stationed  was  formerly  a  French  artillery  training 
camp.  It  is  situated  high  up  in  the  mountains,  about  2,500  feet 
above  sea  level,  and  has  a  very  pretty  setting.  There  is  an  old 
village  and  a  new  village;  both  are  quaint  and  typically  French  in 
every  way.  The  newest  house  in  the  old  village  was  built  in  1843. 
Scattered  around  and  nestling  in  what  we  would  call  back  home 
canyons  are  a  number  of  smaller  villages.  Each  has  its  old  church, 
and  on  Saturday  afternoon  and  on  Sundays  our  soldiers  take  long 
hikes  visiting  these  villages. 

One  may  only  speak  of  this  lot  of  American  soldiers  at  this  time, 
for  the  rest  of  them  are  scattered  over  France  in  other  American 
training  camps.  Those  I  saw  were  in  good  health,  even  though 
they  reached  this  camp  in  the  special  de  luxe  cars  furnished  by  the 
French  government  for  transporting  troops.  Right  here  one 
pauses,  after  seeing  these  cars,  to  ask  what  has  become  of  the  Ameri- 
can soldier  who  railed  last  year  because  he  was  sent  to  the  Mexican 
border  in  chair  cars  and  not  in  Pullman  sleepers. 

A  French  troop  train,  the  cars  the  length  of  a  good-sized  suit 
case,  are  all  labeled  so  that  the  quartermaster  may  not  make  a 
mistake.  Homme,  46;  chevan,  8  (46  men  or  8  horses).  In  these 
cars  the  American  soldiers  are  now  traveling,  and  from  now  until 
they  get  back  to  the  good  old  U.  S.  A.,  unless  they  travel  on  per- 
mission, they  will  travel  to  and  from  the  training  camps  or  the 


480  APPENDIX  VHI 

front.  In  the  center  of  the  cars  are  two  rows  of  wooden,  straight 
backed  benches,  and,  believe  me,  when  46,  or,  as  the  case  may  be, 
48  men  are  packed  in  these  toy  cattle  cars,  it's  a  case  of  when  one 
cares  to  move  his  position  all  must  move  together.  They  are  sans 
light  and  sans  heat,  so  when  American  soldiers  took  a  January 
day  ride  (their  first  journey  by  rail  in  France),  it  is  not  be  to  won- 
dered at  if  inquiries  were  made  for  the  fellows  who  howled  about 
riding  in  chair  cars  in  America. 

The  opportunity  to  kick  and  complain,  taking  the  dope  from 
the  past  kicking  performance  of  the  national  guard  or  regular 
soldier,  would  strike  one  as  offering  a  splendid  chance  to  air  his 
grievance.  Yet  I  never  heard  a  single  soldier  raise  his  voice  in 
protest  because  he  traveled  in  horse  or  cattle  cars.  The  psychology 
of  this  is  easy — American  adaptability  and  the  realization  that  at 
last  he  is  a  soldier  and  must  take  a  soldier's  pot  luck.  He  wants 
luxury  when  it  is  to  be  had  and  others  of  his  kind  are  getting  it,  but 
when  he  knows  the  soldiers  of  France,  real  fighters  if  ever  real 
fighters  were  born,  have  been  going  to  and  from  the  front  in  such 
cars,  your  good  American  soldiers  in  the  making  laughs  and  makes 
a  joke  of  what  he  calls  his  new  style  "side-door  Pullman." 

WOMEN   HANDLE   TRUCKS 

While  all  this  stupendous  movement  of  troops  is  going  on,  there 
is  the  handling  of  the  millions  of  tons  of  supplies  and  a  very  heavy 
passenger  travel.  Of  course  passenger  travel  gets  second  considera- 
tion. In  every  road  terminal  were  long  lines  of  freight  cars  loaded 
to  the  last  pound  of  weight  they  could  carry,  while  in  the  freight 
sheds  other  stuff  was  waiting  for  cars.  Man  power  has  given  away 
to  woman  power.  It  is  all  sex  equality  with  a  vengeance,  for  the 
French  women  seem  to  be  able  to  handle  the  trucks  as  easily  as  do 
the  men.  And  what  few  men  are  on  the  job  are  poilu  recovering 
or  recovered  from  wounds. 

It  was  the  same  in  the  fields  of  the  farming  districts  through 
which  the  train  passed.  Men  and  women  were  doing  their  spring 
plowing.  Sometimes  they  had  horses,  but  for  the  most  part  it 
was  a  team  of  slow  moving  sad-eyed  oxen.  Once  or  twice  I  saw  a 
team  of  oxen  driven  tandem,  the  tandem  being  a  small  burro 
about  the  size  of  an  eastern  Oregon  or  western  Washington  jack 
rabbit.  Yet  these  farms  looked  remarkably  well  kept  up  and  the 
scene  all  looked  very  peaceful  and  rural. 

The  French  franc  and  the  centime  have  our  soldiers  by  the  ears. 
Here  is  a  story  told  me  by  an  American  major,  chief  of  staff.  He 
was  passing  through  Paris.  In  front  of  him  buying  a  ticket  across 
town  on  the  underground  Metro  were  two  American  soldiers. 
The  enlisted  man  placed  an  American  nickel  before  the  woman 
ticket  seller  and  called  out  his  station.  The  woman  handed  him 


SENTENCE  FAULTS  481 

back  two  tickets  and  what  was  the  equivalent  in  our  money  to 
3  cents  in  change.  Men  in  uniform  get  reduced  rates  on  the  rail- 
roads and  the  street  cars.  To  add  to  this  confusion  is  the  coinage  of 
the  allied  nations. 

In  travels  about  one  runs  into  both  amusing  and  annoying  ex- 
periences. For  instance,  on  the  train  which  took  me  from  Paris, 
my  traveling  companions  were  three.  One  was  a  French  colonel; 
across  his  breast  were  many  war  decorations  and  on  the  sleeve  of 
his  coat  were  gold  stripes  signifying  the  number  of  times  he  had 
been  wounded.  Another  was  a  French  major,  with  fewer  decora- 
tions, a  living  picture  of  Wilton  Lackaye.  The  third,  in  civilian 
dress,  was  evidently  a  secret  service  man.  He  was  deeply  interested 
in  my  arm  brassard.  Finally  when  he  could  not  stand  it  any  longer, 
he  demanded  to  see  my  permission.  I  could  only  get  the  drift  of 
what  they  were  talking  about,  but  I  sensed  I  was  the  subject  of 
their  conversation.  I  pulled  the  haughty  stare  stuff,  then  drew  out 
my  papers  and  handed  them  to  the  French  general.  The  old  fellow 
caught  my  meaning  at  once  and  maybe  he  didn't  poke  fun  at  the 
bird  in  citizen  clothes.  He  found  my  papers  all  right,  and  until 
they  got  off,  I  conversed  in  sign  language  and  used  up  all  the  copy 
paper  I  had  with  me  in  carrying  on  a  conversation  with  them. 

When  these  two  French  officers  got  off  a  young  French  second 
lieutenant  got  into  my  compartment.  After  a  long  time  his  curi- 
osity got  the  better  of  him,  and  he,  too,  wanted  to  know.  I  was 
wise  by  this  time  and  I  handed  him  my  card.  "Aaah,"  he  ex- 
claimed, "1'correspondent,"  then  he  explained  he  was  returning 
to  the  front  line  after  recovering  from  his  wounds.  His  description 
of  the  wounds  he  had  received  was  done  in  pantomime,  but  it  was 
dramatic.  He  pointed  to  several  places  on  his  body  where  at  the 
hospital  they  had  removed  from  his  anatomy  a  part  of  the  steel  out- 
put of  Germany,  also  from  the  side  of  his  face.  He  was  a  fine  young 
man,  about  28  years  old  I  should  judge.  He  was  a  handsome  chap, 
and  the  shell,  which  he  described  when  it  exploded  as  being,  "ooo 
la,  la,  bom-bom,"  left  no  facial  blemishes. 

MANY   READ   ENGLISH 

He  could  read  English,  as  can  most  of  the  French,  whether  he 
be  an  officer,  poilu  or  plain  city  dweller,  and  he  wrote  me  of  many 
things  which  I  dare  not  set  down  here.  His  name  was  Felix  Pel- 
letiere.  My  only  hope  is  that  he  passes  safely  through  the  rest  of 
the  war,  for  only  in  a  few  instances  has  it  been  my  good  fortune 
to  have  met  such  a  perfect  gentleman  and  one  with  such  perfect 
courtesy. 


482  APPENDIX  VIII 

IDIOMS 

385.  In  the  following  list  note  the  idioms  in  regard  to 
which  you  make  mistakes,  and  master  the  correct  forms: 

Accordance  with. 

In  accordance  with  (not  to)  our  agreement.     .     .    . 

Agree. 

James  agrees  with  me. 

I  agree  to  your  terms. 

Ripe  fruit  agrees  With  him. 

Alike.    Do  not  use  both  with  it: 
The  twins  are  alike  (not  both  alike). 

All  right.    Note  that  there  is  no  such  form  as  alright. 
Alternatives.     Do   not  say   several   alternatives,   as  the 
meaning  is  confined  to  two  things  or  courses. 

And.    (1)  Do  not  use  in  place  of  the  infinitive  particle: 

Try  to  (not  and)  sleep. 
Come  to  (not  and)  see  me. 

(2)  Do  not  use  and  where  connection  is  already  made 
in  another  way : 

I  have  a  large  cat  (and)  which  is  an  angora. 

He  bought  a  piano  (and)  for  which  he  has  not  paid. 

Angry.    Use  with  of  persons,  at  only  of  things. 
Another.    Follow  by  than  (not  from) : 

A  man  of  another  temperament  than  Caesar's. 
As.    Do  not  use  for  that: 

I  do  not  know  that  I  can  tell. 
Not  that  I  know  of. 

As  to.    Do  not  use  before  how,  where,  when,  whom,  what, 
or  other  adverbs  or  pronouns  introducing  indirect  questions: 


How  this  may  be,  I  don't  understand. 

Where  he  is,  I  don't  know. 

Whom  you  mean,  I  cannot  imagine. 


SENTENCE  FAULTS  483 

At.    Do  not  use  with  where: 
Where  is  he?    Not:  Where  is  he  at  ? 

Between.  Do  not  use  for  among.  Between  applies  to  per- 
sons or  things  taken  by  twos,  and  is  followed  by  the  ob- 
jective case: 

Between  the  King  and  his  general. 
Between  you  and  me. 
Between  her  and  him. 

Blame.    Do  not  use  with  on: 

Don't  blame  me  for  it.    Not:  Don't  blame  it  on  me. 

But.    Do  not  use  but  what  for  that  or  but  that: 

I  do  not  doubt  that  he  will  come;  I  don't  know  but  that  he  did. 

Cannot  help.  After  cannot  help  use  the  participle,  not  the 
finite  verb  with  but: 

You  cannot  help  liking  (not  help  but  like)  her. 

Caused  by.    This  phrase  is  not  a  preposition.    Do  not  say : 

He  missed  his  train,  caused  by  (for  because  of)  the  high  water. 

Compare.  Use  with  to  mean  measure  by;  to  to  express 
similarity: 

Why  compare  small  things  with  great? 
He  compared  her  to  a  rose. 

Differ.  Use  with,  when  the  meaning  is  disagree;  from 
when  the  meaning  is  be  different: 

I  differ  toith  you  on  this  point. 

This  text  differs  from  the  other  in  this  respect. 

Different.    Use  with  from,  never  with  than  or  to: 

She  is  different  from  (not  to)  her  sister. 

Directly.    Do  not  use  for  a*  soon  as: 

As  soon  as  (not  directly)  I  saw  him,  I  knew  he  was  an  impostor. 


484  APPENDIX  VIII 

Do  and  Did.  It  is  usually  better  to  repeat  the  verb  than 
to  use  these  substitutes. 

Due  to.    Do  not  use  for  owing  to  or  because  of.    (See  342.) 

Each  other.  Use  each  other  for  two  persons;  one  another 
for  more  than  two. 

Else.    (1)  Follow  by  but,  not  than: 

No  one  else  but  (not  than)  I  could  have  waited  so  long. 
(2)  Usage  warrants  the  addition  of  's  to  else: 
Anybody  else's  (not  anybody's  else)  house. 
Except.    Do  not  use  for  unless.    (See  without.} 
Do  not  go  unless  (not  except)  I  tell  you. 

Former  .  .  .  latter.  Avoid  these  words  if  possible,  for 
they  are  often  ambiguous. 

Got.    (1)  Omit  with  have  when  it  shows  possession: 

I  have  (not  have  got)  a  new  hat. 

(2)  Use  must  instead  of  have  got  to: 
I  must  (not  have  got  to)  buy  some  gloves. 

(3)  Do  not  use  with  married: 
They  were  married  (not  got  married). 

If.    Whether  is  now  preferred  to  if  in  an  indirect  question: 

I  do  not  know  whether  (not  if)  he  can. 

In  search  of.    Search  for  is  correct:  but  in  search  of: 

In  search  of  gold  (not  for  gold). 

Inside  of.    Do  not  use  for  urithin,  to  express  time: 

Within  (not  inside  of)  a  year  I  shall  finish. 

Omit  the  preposition: 

He  was  inside  (not  inside  of)  the  limit. 

Listen  to. 

Listen  to  (not  at)  me. 


SENTENCE  FAULTS  485 

Like.    Do  not  use  for  as  if: 
They  walked  as  if  (not  like)  they  were  tired. 
Myself.    Do  not  use  for  7  in  a  series : 
Grace,  Ben,  and  7  (not  myself)  are  going. 

Neither  .  .  .  nor.    Do  not  say :  Neither  he  or  I. 

Nothing  more  nor  less. 

It  was  nothing  more  nor  (not  or)  less. 

Number.  Treat  the  number  as  singular;  a  number  as 
plural. 

Of.    Do  not  use  of  for  have,  as :  could  of,  would  of,  had  of. 

Of  any.    Do  not  use  for  of  all: 

This  is  the  best  book  of  all  (not  of  any)  I  have  read. 

Off.    Never  add  of: 

Take  your  hand  off  (not  off  of)  the  paper. 

One.  Use  instead  of  you  for  an  indefinite  pronoun,  except 
in  conversation  and  colloquial  writing. 

On  to.    Avoid  if  possible.    Use  on,  upon,  or  to. 
Other.    No  other  than  not  no  other  but. 
Ought.    Never  use  with  had. 
Over  with.    Omit  with.    Say :  The  game  is  over. 
Outside  of.    Omit  preposition.    (See  inside  of.) 
Provided  that.    Do  not  use  providing: 

I  shall  go  provided  (not  providing)  that  the  meeting  is  not  again 
postponed. 

Preferable.    Never  use  more  preferable  or  preferable  than. 

Quantity.    Use  to  mean  amount,  not  number. 

Quite  a  few.  Avoid  quite  a  few,  quite  a  while,  quite  a  num- 
ber. 

Reference.    Use  with  reference  to,  not  in  reference  to. 

Regard.  Use  with  regard  to  or  as  regards,  not  with  regards 
to. 

Respect.    Use  with  respect  to  not  respect  of. 

Same.    Avoid  same  altogether  as  a  pronoun. 

I  received  your  enclosure  and  thank  you  for  it  (not  the  same). 


486  APPENDIX  VIII 

Seldom.    Say :  I  seldom  if  ever  go ;  or  I  seldom  or  never  go. 
Self-confessed.   A  confession  can  be  made  only  by  oneself. 
So.    (1)  Do  not  use  absolutely:  It  is  so  pretty! 
(2)  After  not,  so  is  usually  to  be  preferred, to  as:  This  is  not 
so  good  as  that. 

Such  a.    Do  not  use  absolutely:    She  is  such  a  nice  girl! 
That.    Do  not  use  that  for  so: 

I  was  so  tired  (not  that  tired)  that  I  could  not  remember. 
To.    Do  not  use  for  at: 
He  was  not  at  (not  to)  home. 

Unique.    Do  not  use  if  there  is  more  than  one  of  the  kind. 
Used  to  could.    A  locution  worthy  of  study  but  not  of  use. 
View  to.    Say:  With  a  view  to  (not  of)  making. 
Want  to.    Carelessly  used  for  ought,  had  better: 

You  had  better  (not  want  to)  keep  out  of  that. 

Way.    Use  way,  not  ways. 

It  is  a  long  way  (not  ways)  from  here. 

Were.    Always  use  you  were,  never  you  was. 
Without.    Do  not  use  for  unless.    Without  is  a  preposition 
or  an  adverb,  never  a  conjunction: 

Do  not  go  unless  (not  without)  I  bid  you. 

Would.  Would  have  is  much  used  vulgarly  for  the  preterite 
in  such  expressions  as,  It's  a  wonder  you  wouldn't  have  seen 
him. 

You  and  me.    Never  use  you  and  I  after  a  preposition. 


SENTENCE  FAULTS  487 

EXERCISES  IN  DISCRIMINATION 

.- 

386.  With  the  aid  of  the  dictionary  study  differences  in 
meaning  and  use  of  the  following: 

admit — confess 
apparent — evident 


audience — spectators 
avenge — revenge 
avocation — vocation 
aware — conscious 

beside — besides 

character — repu  tation — recommendation 
claim — assert — maintain 
common — mu  tual 
comprehensible — comprehensive 
contemptible — contemptuous 
continual — continuous 
credible — creditable — credulous 

definite — definitive 
discover — invent 
disinterested — uninterested 
distinctly — distinctively 

elegant — fine — grand — lovely — splendid 

element — factor — feature — phase 

equivalent — equal 

essential — necessary 

excessively — exceedingly 

expect — presume — anticipate — suspect 

farther — further 

fewer — less 

first  two— two  first  (last  two— .two  last) 

hanged — hung 

happen — transpire 

healthy — healthful — wholesome 

hereafter — henceforth 

imply — infer 
in — into 


488  APPENDIX  VIII 


inaugurate — initiate 
individual — person — party 
insignificant — trivial 
insoluble — unsolvable 

learn — teach 

leave — let 

lend — loan 

liable — likely — apt 

lie — lay 

like — as  if 

literally — figuratively 

majority — plurality — most 
mend — repair 

necessities — necessaries 

observance — observation 
occasion — induce — cause 
on — upon 
opposite — contrary 
oral — verbal 

patron — customer 
peculiar — odd — unusual 
perpetually — continually 
poisonous — venomous 
practical — practicable 

quiet — quiescent 

raise — rear 

raise — rise 

rebellion — revolt — revolution 

recipe — receipt 

recollect — remember 

relation — relative 

repudiate — deny 

respectively — respectfully — respectably 

scholar — student — pupil 
seat — set — sit 
secure — procure 
sensation — emotion 
space — period 


SENTENCE  FAULTS  489 


stay — stop 

stimulant — stimulus — stimulation 

sustain — incur 

talented— gifted 

thrifty — thriving 

transaction — incident — accident 

u  nless — without 

u  tter — absolu  te — entire 

various — several 
witness — see 


COLLOQUIALISMS 

387.  The  following  should  be  avoided  in  normal  writing: 

about,  for  almost 

ad.,  for  advertisement 

advisedly,  for  intentionally 

aggravate,  for  provoke  or  annoy 

alibi,  for  defense,  excuse 

all  the  farther,  all  the  faster,  for  as  far  as,  as  fast  as 

allow,  for  think  or  admit 

allude  to,  for  mention 

along  this  line,  for  of  this  kind 

anyplace     )  /or  anywhere 

anywheres  j  ' 

apt,  for  likely  or  liable 

around,  for  about 

as,  for  that:  I  don't  know  as 

atrocious,  for  disagreeable 

authoress,  for  woman  writer 

average,  for  customary,  ordinary,  usual 


badly,  for  very  much 
balance,  for  remainder 
bank  on,  for  rely  on 
be  back,  for  return 
belong,  without  an  object 
bogus,  for  counterfeit 
bound,  for  determined 
brainy,  for  intelligent 
build,  for  make 


490  APPENDIX  VIII 

bulk,  for  greater  part 
bunch,  crowd,  far  set,  group 
business,  for  right 

calculate,  for  think 

calculated,  for  likely 

can,  for  may 

citizen,  for  civilian 

claim,  for  assert 

clever,  for  good-natured 

combine,  for  combination 

company,  for  visitor 

complected,  for  complexioned 

conclude,  for  decide 

could  of,  may  of,  must  of,  for  could  have,  etc. 

couple,  for  several 

critically,  for  seriously 


'for  attractive  or  little 
curious,  for  odd,  singular 

date,  for  engagement,  appointment 

declared,  for  said 

demean,  for  degrade 

demise,  for  death 

depot,  for  station. 

directly,  for  immediately 

doctress,  lady  doctor,  for  woman  doctor 

edify,  for  please,  entertain 
electrocute,  for  kill  by  electricity 
elegant,  for  good 
endorse,  for  approve 
enthuse,  for  be  enthusiastic 
entitled,  for  authorized,  privileged 
episode,  for  occurrence 
every,  for  entire,  full 
every  place,  for  everywhere 
example,  for  problem 
expect,  for  suppose 

fail,  as  a  transitive  verb 

fail,  when  there  has  been  no  effort 

favor,  for  resemble 

feel  of,  for  feel 

finances,  for  wealth 

first-rate,  for  well. 


SENTENCE  FAULTS  491 

fix,  for  repair,  arrange,  settle 
folks,  for  family 
foot  the  bill,  for  pay 
forebears,  for  ancestors 
funny,  for  strange 

gent,  for  gentleman 

gentleman,  for  man 

gentleman  friend,  for  friend 

good,  for  well 

gotten,  for  got 

guess,  for  think,  suppose,  imagine 

had  have,  had  of,  for  had  (as,  If  he  had  of  asked  me,  .  .  .) 

had  ought,  for  ought 

handy,  for  near 

heigh th,  for  height 

home  for  house 

how,  for  What  did  you  say? 

human,  for  human  being 

hurry,  for  haste 

hurt,  for  harm 

idea,  for  purpose 
immediately,  for  as  soon  as 
invite,  for  invitation 

kind  of  'for  rather 

lady,  for  woman 
lady  friend,  for  friend 
learn,  for  teach 
leave,  for  let 


,.         r  ,/or  h'ef 
lives   j   J 

lengthways,  for  lengthwise 
loan,  for  lend 
locate,  for  settle 

>°*of},/ormuch 

mad,  for  angry 

make,  for  earn 

midst,  in  our,  for  among  us 

mighty,  for  very 

mind,  for  obey 

minus,  for  lacking 


492  APPENDIX  VIII 

moneyed,  for  wealthy 
most,  for  almost 

never,  as  merely  emphatic  for  not 
nice,  for  pleasant 
nohow,  for  not  at  all 
nowhere  near,  for  not  nearly 

opine,  for  think 
out  loud,  for  aloud 
overly,  for  too 

pants,  for  trousers 
partial  to,  for  fond  of 
party,  for  person 
photo,  for  photograph 
piece,  for  short  distance 


poorly,  for  ill 
post,  for  inform 
pretend,  for  profess 

quite,  for  rather  or  very  much 

real,  for  very 

reckon,  for  think 

reccommend,  for  reccommendation 

regular,  for  real 

remember  of,  for  remember 

researcher,  for  investigator 

rig,  for  outfit,  costume 

right,  for  very 

right  off^  }  •/"  ^mediately,  at  once 
right  smart,  for  a  good  many 
run,  for  manage 

say,  listen,  imperative  to  introduce  a  remark 

say  so,  for  consent,  n. 

second-handed,  for  secondhand 

settle,  for  pay 

shape,  for  condition 

show,  for  chance 

show,  for  performance 

show  up,  for  expose 

side  with,  for  agree  with 


SENTENCE  FAULTS  493 


sideways,  far  sidewise 
sign  up,  for  sign 
simply,  for  really 
since,  for  ago 
size  up,  for  estimate 
smart,  for  bright,  able 
some,  for  somewhat 


soon,  for  willingly 
sort  of,  for  rather 
stand  for,  for  permit 
start,  for  begin 
state,  for  say 
substantiate,  for  prove 
suicided,  for  killed  himself 
sure,  for  surely 

tasty,  for  tasteful 

these  kind,  for  this  kind 

this  here,  that  there,  for  this,  that 

through,  for  finished 

transpire,  for  happen 

unbeknown,  unbeknownst,  for  unknown 
unique,  for  rare 

ventilate,  for  express,  disclose 

was  had:  A  delightful  time  was  had  by  all. 

well,  to  introduce  a  sentence 

while,  for  whereas,  because 

whip,  for  defeat 

whereabouts,  for  where 

why,  to  introduce  a  sentence 


write  up,  n.,for  account  of 

you  all  | 

we  all    '  ,  meaning  merely  you,  we,  who. 

who  all) 


494  APPENDIX  VIH 

OVERWORKED  PHRASES 

388.  Read  this  list  and  add  to  it  as  many  similar  ex- 
pressions as  you  can.    Then  avoid  them  all. 

cupid's  bow 

cup  that  cheers 

devouring  element 

festive  board 

own  vine  and  fig-tree 

skeleton  in  the  closet 

old  Sol 

fragrant  weed 

downy  couch 

dogs  of  war 

silvery  locks 

velvety  grass 

feathery  snow 

starry  eyes 

cupid's  snare 

cakes  and  ale 

Patience  on  a  monument 

worm  i'  the  bud 

when  my  ship  comes  in 

distance  lends  enchantment 

shady  nooks 

hide  modestly 

paths  of  rectitude 

inviting  dalliance 

ripple  of  girlish  laughter 

wrought  sad  havoc 

cottage  (or  village)  nestled 

connubial  bliss 

snowy  blossoms 

discreet  silence 

culinary  purposes 

familiar  landmark 

fateful  day 

epistolary  efforts 

impenetrable  mystery 

sequestered  corner 

a  mere  song 

horny-handed  son  of  toil 

fleecy  clouds 

borne  in  triumph 

depth  of  winter 


SENTENCE  FAULTS  495 


lavish  profusion 
humble  friends 
heart's  content 
old-world  chivalry 
nefarious  occupation 
the  good-wife 
sun  smites  remorselessly 
modest  requirements 
hotly  contested 
misguided  individual 
untoward  accident 
more  forcible  than  polite 
profound  silence  reigned 
fleecy  clouds 
watery  grave 
rippling  water 
equal  to  the  occasion 
quivered  with  excitement 
along  these  lines 
in  the  last  analysis 


INDEX 


[Titles  of  separate  publications  are  in  italics;  titles  of  single  poems  and 
short  stories  are  quoted;  pages  containing  quotations  are  printed  in  bold 
face.] 


Abstracts,  making,  150 

Abbreviation,  442 

Action  and  movement,  description 
of,  185 

Addison,  Joseph,  351,  354 

Adjective  clause,  essential  modifier, 
86f.;  non-essential  modifier,  87; 
position  and  punctuation,  87 

Adjective  modifiers,  blended,  69; 
essential,  69;  non-essential,  69; 
place  of,  70;  punctuation,  69 

Adjective  phrases,  place  of,  93; 
punctuation  of  series  of,  70 

Adjectives  and  Adverbs,  466ff. 

Adjectives,  connected  by  conjunc- 
tions, 70;  two  modifying  same 
noun,  69 

"Adonais,"  407 

Adverb,  dislocated,  70 

Adverbial  clauses,   non-essential, 
position  and  punctuation,  87 

Adverbial  modifiers,  place  of,  70  - 

Adverbial  phrases,  essential  mod- 
ifiers, 70;  non-essential  modifiers, 
70;  placing  for  emphasis,  93; 
punctuation,  70f . ;  rule  for  placing, 
93 

Adverb,  relative,  for  subordination, 
83 

Adverbs,  placing  of,  467;  punctua- 
tion of  series,  71;  qualifying 
predication,  68;  transitional,  133; 
of  negation,  467f . 

Alexandrine,  407 

Alliteration,  401f. 

Almanac,  Daily  Neios,  232;  Whit- 
aker's,  232;  World,  232 


American  at  Oxford,  An,  29 

Amplification,  204;  illustrated,  190 

Analogy,  argument  by,  243;  method, 
243f.;  theory,  243;  use  of,  244 

Analysis  of  narrative  material,  149 

Anapest,  398f. 

And,  comma  with,  73 

And  who,  465 

Annual  Magazine,  232 

Answering  letters,  389 

Antecedent,  pronoun  near,  lOlf.; 
definitely  expressed,  102f.;  un- 
mistakable, 102 

Antithesis,  104 

Any,  471 

Apostrophe,  441f. 

Appearances,  104 

Appendix,  412-495 

Apposition,  substantive  clause  in, 
punctuation  of,  86 

Appositive,  defined,  69;  punctuation 
of,  69;  pronoun,  464 

Arden,  Joan,  164ff.,  178£f. 

Argument,  222-254;  aims  in,  247; 
by  analogy,  243f.;  audience  in, 
247f.;  authority  in,  226-232; 
basis  of,  222;  on  current  topics, 
230;  deductive  reasoning  in,  237- 
240;  errors  in,  causes  of,  227,  235, 
238f.;  evidence  in,  222-226;  ev- 
idence, circumstantial,  224f.,  229; 
evidence,  direct,  223f.;  evidence, 
indirect,  224f.,  229;  evidence 
tested,  228;  facts  tested,  230f.; 
fact  and  inference,  difference  be- 
tween, 234;  formal,  249-253; 
formal,  body  of,  249ff.;  formal, 


497 


498 


INDEX 


conclusion,  250f.;  formal,  intro- 
duction, 249ff . ;  formal,  refutation, 
253;  hints  for,  239;  inductive 
reasoning  in,  233-236;  persuasion 
in,  246ff.;  premise,  major  and 
minor,  237f.;  propaganda  paper, 
365;  reasoning  in,  234f.;  in  re- 
search, 381;  two  sides  in,  223; 
use  of,  222 

Arnold,  Matthew,  20,  21,  265,  365. 
400,  403 

Article,  informative,  335,  340,  350 

Assignment,  8,  19,  29,  35,  49,  56,  62, 
67,  71,  81,  89,  95,  100,  105,  110, 
116,  120,  122,  129,  137,  140,  146, 
150,  153,  163,  168,  173,  178,  185, 
188,  194,  197,  204,  205,  207,  212, 
219,  225,  232,  236,  240,  242,  245, 
249,  253,  265,  273,  281,  283,  288, 
289,  291,  295,  298,  301,  305,  314, 
316,  320,  322,  324,  334,  339,  345, 
351,  354,  356,  359,  361,  363,  366, 
375,  390,  392,  394,  396,  402,  406, 
407,  409 

Atlantic  Monthly,  63,  163,  339,  354, 
355f. 

Attention,  fundamental,  38;  corrects 
faults,  38 

Audience,  in  persuasion,  247f. 

Austen,  Jane,  142,  157,  364,  373, 388 

Autobiography,  363 

Balanced  sentence,  104 
Ballad,  The,  403;  meter  of,  401 
"Ballad  of  Trees  and  the  Master, 

A,"  19 

Barrack  Room  Ballads,  204 
Barrie,  Sir  James,  259,  325 
"Battle  of  Otterburn,  The,"  407 
Beebe,  William,  162,  163,  363,  354 
Beerbohm,  Max,  351 
Bennett,  Arnold,  157,  203f. 
Benson,  A.  C.,  357 
Benson,  E.  F.,  324 
Better,  471 

Bibliography,  382;  card,  422 
Bierce,  Ambrose,  305,  323f. 


Biographical  Study,  357-363;  I 
with  abundant  material,  357f. 
II,  with  few  facts,  359;  III,  in- 
ternal evidence,  362;  problems  in, 
358 

"Bishop's  Comedy,  The,"  305 

"Black  Cat,  The,"  141 

Blackmore,  R.  D.,  141 

Blackwood,  Algernon,  5,  77,  267, 
271,  305 

Blank  verse,  400 

Bleak  House,  139,  157 

"Boarded  Window,  The,"  326 

Body,  in  formal  argument,  249ff.; 
news,  286 

Book,  appeal  of,  variable,  373 

Books,  system  in  use  of,  24 

"  Borrowed  Plumes,  In,"  305,  326 

Boswell,  James,  233,  364 

"Bottle  Imp,  The,"  325 

"  Bounty- Jumper,  The,"  326 

"  Brachycephalic  Bohunkus,  The," 
325 

Brackets,  44,  455 

"Bridge-builders,  The,"  305 

Brief  (model),  251f. 

Brooke,  Rupert,  19 

Browsing  process  in  reading,  22,  27 

"Brushwood  Boy,  The,"  141,  305 

Bryant,  W.  C.,  402 

Bryce,  Sir  James,  146,  233 

Bunyan,  John,  403 

Burr,  Amelia,  19 

Burroughs,  John,  136,  163,  252f. 

Butler,  Samuel,  271,  366 

Byron,  408 

"By  Water,"  326 

Cacophony,  107 
"Cain's  Atonement,"  326 
Cambridge  and  Its  Colleges,  29 
Cannan,  Gilbert,  333 
Canterbury  Tales,  380 
Capital  letters,  use  of,  39f . 
Capitals,  424-428;  and  italics,  422 
Card  catalogue,  how  to  use,  23 
Carlyle,  Thomas,  40,  233,  388 


INDEX 


Carpenter,  Edward,  30.  349 

"Case  of  Paramore,  The,"  305 

Carrell,  Alexis,  233 

Carroll,  Lewis  (Dodgson,  C.  L.), 
269,  388 

Cause  and  effect,  192,  208,  213 

Century  Magazine,  63 

Chamberlin,  Thomas  Chrowder,  233 

"Change  of  Treatment,  A,"  305,  315 

Character  drawing,  213-219; 
methods,  213f.;  indirect  method, 
214;  purpose,  213;  useful  sugges- 
tions for,  318 

Character  essays,  methods  of  writ- 
ing, 354f. 

Characteristics  and  sources  of  short 
story,  303f. 

Characterization,  193;  direct  ex- 
position avoided  in,  317;  essen- 
tials in,  317;  ideal  in,  316;  in 
play,  331 

Characters  in  short  story,  316-320; 
few,  316;  naming  of,  319 

Chaucer,  Geoffrey,  380,  407 

Chesterton,  Gilbert,  279 

Child  in  the  House,  The,  265 

Choice  determined  by  rhythm,  264 

Choosing  a  subject,  381 

Christmas  Carol,  A,  305 

Chronicle,  Old  English,  142 

Clarendon,  Earl  of,  229 

Clarke,  A  Treasury  of  War  Poetry,  19 

Clauses,  475;  correlative  in  content, 
76ff.;  correlative,  use  of,  77f.; 
essential  and  non-essential,  how 
to  distinguish,  88;  parallel  in  con- 
struction, 88;  parallel,  position  of, 
79;  pronouns  in,  464f.;  punctua- 
tion of,  in  compound  sentences, 
79f.;  subordinate,  arrangement 
of,  88;  subordinate,  function  of, 
86;  subordinate,  number  in  com- 
plex sentence,  85;  transitional, 
133;  transitional,  position  of,  133; 
transitional,  punctuation  of,  68 

Clearness,  100-105;  grammatical 
correctness  requisite  for,  100; 


mastery  of  pronoun,  requisite  for, 
101 ;  proper  arrangement  requisite 
for,  101;  parallelism  aid  to,  103 

Climax,  88;  defined,  156;  keep  in 
mind,  306;  order  of,  104,  125;  in 
play,  330 

Coffin,  Howard  E.,  344 

Colon,  447f. 

Colloquialisms,  489 

Comedy  plot,  156 

Comma,  44,  80,  86ff.,  94,  448-451; 
abuses  of,  451f.;  with  and,  73; 
omitted  with  and,  73;  with  adjec- 
tive modifiers,  68;  with  adverbial 
modifiers,  68;  with  conjunction!, 
79f.;  with  independent  elements, 
68;  with  multiple  elements,  73; 
in  simple  sentence,  68-71;  use  of 
single,  67 

Commas,  use  few,  71;  two,  67 

Compactness,  96-100;  rules  for,  97f. 

Compact  structure,  illustrated  and 
explained,  96f. 

Comparison,  469ff.;  and  contrast, 
192;  use  of,  125 

Complement,  predicate,  55,  463 

Complex  sentence,  56;  construction 
of,  82,  84;  correlation  of  clauses  in 
form  and  content,  77,  79 

Compound  sentence,  56;  basic  prin- 
ciple, 76 

Compound-Complex  sentence,  84 

Concatenation,  258 

Concentration,  29 

Conclusion,  237f.;  in  formal  argu- 
ment, 249ff.;  in  play,  330 

Condition  of  success,  340 

Congressional  Record,  233 

Conjunction,  73f.,  79f. ;  coordinating, 
132f.;  correlative,  472;  omission 
of,  73f.,  76,  79f.;  repeated,  103; 
for  subordination,  83 

Conjunctions,  473f. 

Conrad,  Joseph,  4,  58f.,  65,  67,  72, 
74. 76, 77f.,  173, 264, 305, 322, 363 

Constitutional  History  of  England, 
146 


500 


INDEX 


Contents,  tables  of,  24 

"Contraband  of  War,"  305 

Contrast,  88 

"Contributors'  Club"  in  Atlantic 
Monthly,  355f. 

Conversation,  paragraphing,  122 

Coordination,  472f. 

Corbin,  John,  29 

"Courting  of  Dinah  Shadd,  The," 
320 

Cranford,  141 

Critic,  good,  370f.;  must  be  un- 
biased, 372 

Critical  attitude,  374 

Criticism,  369-380;  point  of  view 
in,  374;  problems  of  technique  in, 
371f.;  unprofitable,  369f. 

Cromwell,  Oliver,  229 

Crothers,  Samuel  McChord,  128, 
129,  130,  131 

Culture  and  Anarchy,  20 

Cunliffe,  Poems  of  the  Great  War,  19 

"Cultivated  Man,  The,"  9 

Dactyl,  399 

Darmsteter,    James,     The    Life    of 

Words,  265 
Dash,  86,  452f. 
"Daunt  Diana,  The,"  305 
David  Copperfield,  157 
"Death  of  Arthur,  The,"  407 
Declaration  of  Independence,  233 
Deductive  reasoning,   237-240;  er- 
rors in,  238f.;  hints  for,  239 
Definition,  189,  194-197;  accurate, 

196;  close,  195 

Demonstrative,  repetition  of,  472 
Description,  159-188;  aim,  159; 
art  of,  161;  of  action  and  move- 
ment, 185;  combined  with  narra- 
tion, 185-188;  conditions  of,  161f.; 
danger  of  inexperienced  writer, 
170;  details,  choice  of,  166ff.; 
general  impression,  174-178;  gen- 
eralized, 190;  generalized  descrip- 
tion and  narration,  206f.;  plan, 
182-185;  point  of  view,  170-173; 


root  of  trouble,  171;  sense  appeal, 
159-163;  test  of,  160;  unifying 
principle  in,  174;  use  of,  159 

Des  Moines  Register  and  Leader,  301 

Development,  of  paragraph,  124; 
of  short  story,  305-313 

Dialogue,  322ff.;  materials  for,  324; 
in  play,  332;  secret  of  good,  322 

Diana  of  the  Crossways,  157 

Dickens,  Charles,  139,  141,  155-157, 
373 

Dickinson,  J.  Lowes,  103-105 

Dictionary,  30-34;  methods  of  pre- 
senting information,  33;  rules  for 
use  of,  31-34 

Dictionary  of  National  Biography, 
232 

Dimeter,  401 

Discrimination,  exercises  in,  487ff. 

Division,  191,  198ff.;  process  of,  198; 
satisfactory,  199 

Dolly  Dialogues,  324 

Domesday  Book,  233 

Don  Quixote,  373 

Drama,  329;  acts  of,  329 

Drinkwater,  John,  19 

Drummond,  Henry,  243 

Dryden,  John,  399 

Dunsany,  Lord,  333f. 

East  Lynne,  245,  369 

Economy,  in  sentence,  264 

Editorials,  299;  length  of,  299 

Egoist,  The,  157 

"Elaborate  Elopement,  An,"  326 

Elimination  of  unsuitable  material, 
143f.;  methods  of,  151 

Eliot,  George  (Evans,  Mary  Ann), 
157 

Elliot,  Charles  William,  9 

Ellipses,  453 

Elliptical  sentence,  5,  322;  sub- 
ordinate clause,  468 

"El  Ombu,"  305 

Emma,  142 

Emphasis,  secured  by  comma,  71; 
placing  of  phrase  for,  92 


INDEX 


501 


Encyclopaedia  Britannica,  232,  233 

English,  on  speaking,  442-445; 
suggestions  for  improvement  in, 
443 

English  Prose  and  Poetry,  265,  406f. 

English  Review,  63 
'  Enunciation,  15f. 

Erehwon,  271,  366 

Errors,  causes  of,  227;  in  deductive 
reasoning,  238f.;  in  inductive  rea- 
soning, 235f. 

Essay,  335-366;  art  of  writing,  350; 
character,  methods  of  writing, 
354f.;  informal,  350f. 

Essential  modifiers,  86ff.;  placing  of, 
92;  distinguish  between  non- 
essential  and,  88 

Essentials  of  good  narration,  145 

Euphony,  107f.;  and  rhythm,  107f.; 
rule  for  combining,  107 

Evidence,  222-226;  circumstantial, 
224,  229;  direct,  223;  indirect,  224, 
229;  tested,  228 

Exclamation  mark,  44,  68,  80,  447 

Exclamatory  sentence,  use  of,  98 

Exemplification,  conditions  of,  202f.; 
kinds  of,  202f. 

Exercises,  in  discrimination,  487ff.; 
in  the  short  story,  326 

Exposition,  189-221;  by  amplifica- 
tion, illustrated,  190;  by  ampli- 
fication, 204;  by  cause  and  effect, 
192,  208-212;  by  character  draw- 
ing, 213-217;  by  characterization, 
193;  by  comparison  and  contrast, 
192;  by  definition,  189,  194-197; 
by  generalized  description,  190; 
by  generalized  description  and 
narration,  206f.;  by  division,  191, 
198-201;  by  enumeration  of  qual- 
ities, 192;  by  example,  192;  by 
exemplification,  202f.;  fundamen- 
tals of,  194;  by  paraphrase,  204f. 

Expression,  art  of,  can  be  learned,  3 

Fabre,  Henri,  163 
Faerie  Queene,  The,  407 


Fall,  330 

"Fall  of  the  House  of  Usher,  The," 
141 

Feature  story,  289 

Fiction,  defined,  153 

Fifes  and  Drums,  19 

"Fifty  Fathoms  Down,"  305,  321 

Figures,  in  compound  sentences,  77; 
in  effective  phrasing,  263;  use  of, 
263 

Fire  Bring cr,  The,  19 

Firth,  J.  B.,  29 

Five  Plays,  333 

"Follow-up"  stories,  296 

Foot,  in  verse,  398ff. 

Footnotes,  413;  abbreviations  in,  442 

Form,  good,  37-49;  confidence  and 
ease  how  gained,  37;  essential, 
386;  main  features  of,  39;  value 
of,  37 

Formal  argument,  249-253;  body  of, 
249ff.;  brief,  25 If.;  conclusion, 
249ff.;  introduction,  249ff.;  refuta- 
tion, 253 

Formal  report,  344 

Forum,  The,  63 

Franklin,  Benjamin,  233,  278f . 

Freeman,  Mary  E.  Wilkins,  305,  313, 
320,  322 

French  Revolution,  The,  233 

"From  the  Main  Top,"  305 

Fuller,  Henry,  367 

Fulleylove,  John,  Oxford,  29 

Galsworthy,     John,     67,    176-178, 

181f.,  323,  332-334,  445 
Gaskell,  Mrs.  E.  C.  S.,  141 
"Gate  of  a  Hundred  Sorrows,  The," 

326 

"Geraniums,"  19 
Gerould,  Katherine  Fullerton,  305, 

813,  320 
Gerund,  468 
Gibson,  Wilfred,  W.,  19 
Gisze,  picture,  221 
"Gold  Bug,  The,"  141,  305 
Good  Housekeeping,  348 


502 


INDEX 


Grammar,  44ff.;  brought  to  life,  46; 

practical,    45;    review,    455-459; 

review,  questions  in,  455ff . ;  theory 

of,  45;  a  theoretical  system,  44; 

reviewed  under  two  aspects,  44 
Green,  J.  R.,  History  of  the  English 

People,  146,  151 
Green  Mansions,  271 
Greenough   and    Kittredge,    Words 

and  their  Ways,  265 
Guide,  The  Reader's,  232 
Gulliver's  Travels,  141,  269f. 

Hague  Conventions,  233 

"Half-past  Ten,"  326 

Hankin,  St.  John,  445 

Hardy,  Thomas,  74,  139,  157,  169, 
179,  261,  369 

Harper's  Magazine,  63,  354 

Hawthorne,  Nathaniel,  141 

Hearne,  Lafcadio,  184,  347 

"Heart  of  Darkness,"  305,  363 

Heart  of  Midlothian,  157 

"Heart  of  Youth,"  326 

Henry,  O.  (Porter,  Sidney  B.),  87f., 
141,  215,  219ff.,  263,  305f..  322, 
324,  326 

Henry  Esmond,  157 

Heptameter,  401 

Heroic  couplet,  401 

Heron,  Cicely,  361f. 

Herrick,  Robert,  305,  378,  379 

Hewlett,  Maurice,  267 

Hexameter,  401 

Historical  sketch,  361 

History  of  the  American  Common- 
wealth, 146 

History  of  England,  233 

History  of  the  English  People,  146, 
151 

History  of  English  Literature,  233 

Holbien,  Hans,  218,  221,  361 

"Horseman  in  the  Sky,  A,"  305, 
323 

House  of  the  Seven  Gables,  The,  141 

"How  Fear  Came,"  188 

Howells,  W.  D.,  67,  313 


Hudson,  W.  H.,  62f.,  67, 135, 136f., 

163,  182,  271,  305,  353,  363 
Human  nature,  studies  in,  354ff. 
Humble  Romance,  A,  305 
Huxley,  Thomas  H.,  233 
Hyphen,  439ff. 

Iambic  foot,  398 

"Ice- Water  PI ,"  326 

Idioms,  482 

Illiteracy,  national,  45f. 

Imagination,  268-273;  builds  upon 
fact,  271;  constructive  work,  271; 
how  cultivated,  269;  facts  about, 
not  understood,  268;  reading 
with,  7 

Imaginative  writing,  law  in,  269 

Indention,  48,  121 

Independent,  The,  339 

Independent  elements,  68 

Index,  24;  special,  23;  volume,  23 

Index,  Pooles,  232 

Indirect  method  in  character  draw- 
ing, 214 

Inference,  drawing  of,  233f.;  differ- 
ence between  fact  and,  234 

Infinitive,  469;  sign  of,  469;  split, 
469;  tense  of,  469 

Information,  reading  for,  25f . 

Informative  article,  335,  340-350; 
conditions  of  success  in,  340 

Intellectual  treasury  enriched,  21 

Interjections,  68,  447,  448 

Interpretation,  217f.;  of  class,  355; 
important  points  in,  217f.;  revela- 
tion of  personality,  217 

Intonation,  15f.;  associated  with 
character,  16 

Introduction,  247,  249ff.;  formal 
argument,  249ff.;  play,  329 

Irving,  Washington,  305 

Italics,  40,  422,  428ff. 

Invitation,  formal,  389f.,  417.; 
acceptance,  417;  declination,  418 

Jacks,  L.  P.,  125-128,  130 
Jacobs,  W.  W.,  305,  315,  322 


INDEX 


503 


James,  Henry,  67,  155,  313 
Jefferies,  Richard,  106,  109,  168f., 

176,  218,  351.  352,  353 
Jespersen,  O.,  Structure  and  Growth 

of  the  English  Language,  265 
Jewett,  Sarah  Orne,  305,  312,  322 
John  Silence,  305 
Jonson,  Ben,  375f. 
Journal  of  Political  Economy,  232 
Journalism,  force  in  life,  278 
Julius  Ca>sar,  366 
Jungle  Books,  The,  188 

"  Kaa's  Hunting,"  188 

Keats,  John,  376,  402,  407 

Kenilworth,  157 

Kensington  Rune  Stone,  382 

"Kerfol,"  305 

Kidnapped,  139 

Kipling,  Rudyard,  9,  10,  11, 13,  67, 

78,  81,  90,  98, 115, 138f.,  141, 149, 

163, 186ff .,  188,  204,  262,  267,  305, 

321,  322 
Kittredge    and    Greenough,    Words 

and  their  Ways,  265 
Knowledge,  securing  special,  342 

"Lady  of  the  Land,  The,"  407 
"Lady  or  the  Tiger,  The,"  325 
"Lake  Isle  of  Innisfree,  The,"  19 
Lamb,  Charles,  350,  351,  364,  388 
Language,  what  people  make  it,  46 
Lanier,  Sidney,  19,  402 
Lead,  286 

"Legend,  The,"  305 
Letters,  386-396,  415-419;  busi- 
ness, 390-397,  418f.;  constructive 
business,  394ff.;  form,  393f.; 
formal,  417;  official,  393f.;  per- 
sonal, 386-390,  415ff.;  routine, 
390-393;  rules  for,  415-419;  rules 
for  answering,  389;  rules  for  busi- 
ness, 418f.;  rule  for  formal,  417f.; 
rules  for  personal,  415ff.;  style  of, 
396;  subjects  for  personal,  387; 
types  of,  393 
Letter  writing,  386-396;  art  worth 


cultivating,  388;  when  formality 

unnecessary,  387;  rules  for  success 

in,  386 

"Letting  in  the  Jungle,"  188 
Letts,  Winifred  M.,  17f. 
Library,  20-29;  getting  at  resources 

of,  23;  use  of,  20-29;  notes,  420ff. 
"Life"  326 
Life  of  the  Spider,  163 
Life  of  Words,  265 
Littel's  Living  Age,  354,  363 
Little  Dorrit,  157 
"Little  Souls,"  326 
"Little  Speck  in  Garnered  Fruit,  A," 

326 

Lodge,  Sir  Oliver,  233 
"Lodging  for  the  Night,  A,"  139,  305 
Loose  sentence,  99 
Lord  Jim,  157 
Lorna  Doone,  141 
"Louisa,"  305 
Lowell,  James  Russell,  402 
Lucas,  E.  V.,  81f. 
"Lycidas,"  408 

Macaulay,  Lord,  99,  233 
Mackenzie,   Compton,   29,   74,  89, 

171f.,  183 

Magazine  Subject  Index,  Annual,  232 
Magna  Charta,  233 
"Making  Port,"  326 
Malory,  Sir  Thomas,  90 
Man  of  Property,  A,  178 
Mandeville,  Sir  John  de,  149 
"Man  Who  Could  Work  Miracles, 

The,"  305 
"Man    Who    Understood    Women, 

The,"  305 

"Man  Who  Was,  The,"  141,  305 
"Man  Who  Would  be  King,  The," 

141 

Manly,  J.  M.,  265,  406f. 
Manuscript,  rules  for,  412ff . 
Marble  Faun,  The,  141 
Margins,  414f. 
Marjorie  Daw,  325 
"Markheim,"  305 


504 


INDEX 


"Mary's  Wedding,"  333 
Masefield,  John,  4,  19,  76 
Master  of  the  Sun,  The,  305 
Material,    choice  of,  5,340;  choice 

conditioned,  5;  how  to  get,  6;  how 

organize,  338;  how  recognize  at  a 

glance,  28;  for  short  story.  303 
"Matter  of  Mean  Elevation,  A,"  326 
Maupassant,  G.  de,  141,  305,  306; 

307-313,  314,  317,  322,  334 
McElween,  John  C.,  263 
Mechanical  features  of  writing,  rule 

for,  39 

Meredith,  George,  67,  155,  273 
Merim'e,  Prosper,  141 
Merrick,  Leonard,  305 
"Merry  Men,  The,"  141,  321 
Metaphor,  256f.,  263 
Meter,  398ff.;  names  of,  400,  401; 

stanzaic  forms,  401,  407,  408,  409 
Metonomy,  256f.,  263 
"Middle  Toe   of  the  Right  Foot, 

The,"  305 
Middlemarch,  157 
Mill  on  the  Floss,  The,  157 
Milton,  John,  364,  370,  371,  373 
Minneapolis  Journal,  300 
Minstrelsy  of  Isis,  29 
"Miracle  of  Purun  Bhagat,  The," 

141,  188 
Models,  conditions  in  use  of,  279f.; 

intelligent  use  of,  278 
Modification,  64-71 
Modifiers,    64-71;   adjective,    68ff.; 

adverbial,  68-71;  essential,   69f., 

86f.;  non-essential,   69f.,   87,   92; 

rule   for,    64;    use    of,    66;    well 

chosen,  65 

Montague,  Lady  Mary  Wortley,  388 
Montaigne,  Michel  de,  351,  379 
Moody,  William  Vaughan,  19,  402 
More,  Sir  Thomas,  361 
Morris,  William,  407 
Morrison,  Arthur,  322 
Muir,  John,  352f. 
"Municipal  Report,  A,"  326 
Muse  in  Arms,  The,  19 


Narration,  142-157;  causes  of  in- 
effectiveness in,  151;  combined 
with  description,  185-188;  nar- 
rative devices,  151;  elimination  of 
unsuitable  material,  143f.;  elim- 
ination, methods  of,  151;  essentials 
of  good  narrative,  145;  limitation 
of  material,  142-146;  plot,  153- 
157;  principle  of,  142;  processes 
in,  143;  scale  of  treatment,  147- 
150 

Nation,  The,  63,  339 

Natural  Law  in  the  Spiritual  World, 
243 

Nature  in  Doicnland,  163 

Nature  study,  351-354 

"Necklace,  The,"  141,  305 

Negation,  adverbs  of,  467f. 

Newcomes,  The,  157 

New  England  Nun,  A,  305 

Newman,  H.  J.  (Cardinal),  116 

New  Republic,  The,  63,  339 

Newspaper,  the  ideal,  282;  ideal 
man,  282 

"Newspaper  Story,  A,"  326 

Newspaper  work,  282-302;  ed- 
itorials, 299f.;  feature  stories, 
289ff.;  "follow  up"  stories,  296f.; 
general  principles,  285ff.;  "human 
interest"  stories,  292-296;  news, 
282f.;  new  sources  of,  283;  news 
stories,  288f.;  news  stories,  body 
of,  286;  news  story,  lead,  286; 
news  story,  rules  for,  285ff.;  "re- 
write stories,"  296f.;  Sunday  ed- 
ition, 298 

Neic  York  Times  Current  History,  232 

New  York  Times  Index,  232 

"Night  Mail,  The,"  305 

Norris,  Frank,  170f,  180 

Note,  card,  421;  informal,  416 

Note  taking,  25,  420 

Notes,  class,  422f.;  library,  420ff. 

North  American  Review,  63 

Octave,  408 
0/-phrase,  466 


INDEX 


505 


Old  Wives'  Tale,  The,  157 

Onomatopoeia,  263 

Order,  of  climax,  104,  125ff.,  128; 
of  logical  relation,  124;  place,  124; 
time,  124;  of  sentences  in  par- 
agraph, 123ff. 

Organization,  of  paragraph,  118,123; 
of  sentence,  57-63;  rule  for,  of  sen- 
tence, 61f.;  of  thought,  57f. 

Orgeas  and  Miradou,  325 

Osborn,  The  Muse  in  Arms,  19 

Other,  470 

Ottava  rima,  401,  407 

Outline,  119f.,  335-339;  fill  in,  123; 
making  an,  343;  mechanical  points 
in,  338;  model,  337;  of  short 
paper,  335-339;  suggestions  for, 
336 

Outlines,  119f.,  146,  148,  198f.,  201, 
210,  211,  212 

Outlook,  The,  63,  339 

Oxford,  29 

Oxford  and  Its  Colleges,  29 

Oxford  and  Oxford  Life,  29 

Palmer,  G.  H.,  8 

Papers,  suggested  subjects  for  term, 
384 

Paragraph,  the,  118-137;  develop- 
ment of,  124-132;  external  organ- 
ization, 118ff.;  internal  organiza- 
tion, 123-132;  length,  121f.; 
mark,  122;  organization  of 
thought,  118;  structural  devices, 
132-137;  transition,  152 

Paragraphing,  conversation,  122; 
effective,  125 

Parallelism,  aid  to  clearness,  103; 
balanced  sentence,  type  of,  104; 
basic  principle  of  compound  sen- 
tence, 76;  rule  for,  103 

Paraphrase,  189,  204f.;  and  am- 
plification, 204f. 

Parenthesis,  marks  of,  454f. 

Participle,  103,  468;  repeated,  103 

Paston  Letters,  233,  388 

Pater,  Walter.  265 


"Penance,"  326 

Penmanship,  419 

Period,  44,  446 

Periodic  sentence,  99 

Persuasion,  246ff.;  aims,  247;  au- 
dience, 247f.;  introduction,  247; 
underlying  principle,  246 

Persuasion,  157 

Petrie,  W.  M.  Flinders,  233 

Phrase,  adjective,  place  of,  93;  ad- 
jective, punctuation  of  series  of, 
70;  choice  between,  and  clause, 
94;  essential  modifier,  92;  non- 
essential  modifier,  92;  of,  466 

Phrases,  90-96,  262f.;  adjective,  93; 
adverbial,  70;  to  be  avoided,  262; 
close  weaving  of,  91f.;  importance 
of,  90f.;  overworked,  494;  placed 
for  emphasis,  92;  punctuation  of, 
95;  rule  for,  262;  transitional,  68 

"Piece  of  String,  The,"  306,  SOT- 
SIS,  314,  317,  322,  334 

"Pit  and  the  Pendulum,  The,"  261 

Pitt-Rivers,  A.  H.  L.  F.,  233 

Plagiarism,  279 

Plan,  in  description,  182-185;  in 
short  paper,  335-340 

Play,  328-334;  Act,  one,  331ff.; 
climax,  330;  conclusion,  330; 
dialogue,  in,  332;  fall,  330;  in- 
troduction, 329;  plot,  329;  pur- 
pose and  process,  328;  rise  of  ac- 
tion, 329;  setting,  332;  suspense, 
final,  330 

"Pleasing  Everybody,"  326 

Plot,  153-157,  306,  313;  comedy, 
156;  complication,  313;  essence  of, 
154;  suspense  in,  156;  tragic,  156; 
unification  of,  306 

Poe,  Edgar  Allan,  141,  261,  305,  402 

Point  of  view,  170-173,  314f.;  deter- 
mined by  material,  315 

Pooles  Index,  232 

Pope,  Alexander,  401 

Possessive  case,  466 

Predicate,  53ff.;  complement,  55, 
463;  verb,  54 


500 


INDEX 


Predication,  53-56,  459 

Premise,  237f. 

Preposition  repeated,  103 

Prepositions,  474 

Pride  and  Prejudice,  157,  373 

Process  and  purpose,  distinguished, 
138ff. 

Pronoun,  appositive,  464;  near  an- 
tecedent, 101;  antecedent  un- 
mistakable, 102;  antecedent  def- 
initely expressed,  102;  case,  463; 
in  clauses,  464f.;  demonstrative, 
134;  indefinite,  463;  number,  462; 
object,  464;  personal,  134;  prin- 
ciple underlying  proper  use  of,  101 ; 
relative,  83,  134;  relative  omission 
of,  465;  relative,  for  subordina- 
tion, 83;  shifting  of,  465 

Pronunciation,  442-445;  errors  in, 
443;  list  of  flagrant  errors  in, 
444 

Propaganda  paper  or  speech,  335- 
365;  argument,  365 

Prose,  277 

Punctuation,  67-95,  445-455;  of 
blended  adjective  modifiers,  69; 
of  adjectives  connected  by  con- 
junctions, 70;  of  adjective  mod- 
ifiers, essential,  69;  of  adjective 
modifiers,  non-essential,  69,  87; 
of  adjective  phrases,  series  of,  70; 
of  adverbial  clauses,  non-essential, 
87;  of  adverbial  phrases,  essential, 
70;  of  adverbial  phrases,  non- 
essential,  70;  of  adverbial  phrases, 
series  of,  71 ;  of  adverbs  qualifying 
predication,  68;  adverbs,  series  of, 
71;  of  appositive,  69,  86;  inter- 
jection, 68,  447f.;  marks,  end,  76; 
marks,  interior,  76;  marks,  va- 
riable and  invariable,  44f.;  origin 
of  errors  in,  67;  of  phrases,  dis- 
tributed, 945;  of  phrases  movable, 
95;  of  phrases,  transitional,  68; 
printer's  device,  43;  of  sentence, 
67-95;  of  simple  sentence,  71 

"Purloined  Letter,  The,"  305 


Purpose  and  process,  distinguished, 

138ff. 
Pygmalion,  258 

Quatrain,  409 

Questions,     direct,     indirect,     and 

rhetorical,  punctuation  of,  44,  80, 

446f. 
Quotation  marks,  uses  of,  44.  102, 

135,  279,  453f. 
Quoting,  for  indebtedness,  279;  in 

notes,  421 

Radiation,  of  words,  258 

Read,  how  to,  6ff. 

Readers  Guide,  The,  23,  29,  232,  364, 
366 

Reading,  4-8;  aloud,  11-19,  107; 
aloud,  difficulties  in,  mechanical, 
13f.;  aloud,  difficulties  over-come, 
14;  aloud,  rhythm  discovered 
by,  12;  aloud,  tone  color  and 
rhythm  realized  by,  11;  aloud, 
test  of  quality  in  writing,  12; 
browsing  process  in,  27;  how  long 
continued,  29;  with  imagination, 
7;  for  information,  25f.;  for  par- 
ticular fact,  26;  perfect,  25;  by 
phrases,  27;  vicarious  living,  7; 
vitalized,  7 

Reasoning,  233-246;  by  analogy, 
243f.;  deduction,  237-240;  hints 
for,  239;  errors  in,  235,  238f.;  in- 
ductive, 233-236;  inductive  and 
deductive,  24  Iff.;  processes,  234 

Reference,  words,  134 

References,  forms  of,  414 

Refutation,  253 

Relation,  order  by,  124 

Relationship,  expressed  by  clause  or 
phrase,  94 

Relative,  adverb,  83;  pronoun,  134; 
omission  of  relative,  465;  pro- 
noun for  subordination,  83 

Repetition,  97f.;  for  clearness,  472; 
principles  of,  34f . 

Report,  formal,  344 


INDEX 


507 


Research,    381-385;    argument    in, 

381 ;  attitude  in,  381 ;  bibliography. 

382;  presentation  of  proofs,  383f.; 

principal  stages,  381 
"Revolt  of  'Mother,'  The,"  305,  326 
"Rewrite"       and        "Follow-up" 

stories,  296 

Rhyme  royale,  401.  407 
Rickert,  Edith,  184 
Riders  to  the  Sea,  333 
"Rikki-Tikki-Tavi,"  138 
"Rip  Van  Winkle,"  305 
Roberts,  C.  G.  D.,  354 
Robertson,  Morgan,  305,  321 
Robinson  Crusoe,  126f.,  141 
Rosalind,  325 
Rossetti,  Christina,  409 
Ruskin,  John,  12,  265 

Said,  use  of,  324 

Saturday  Evening  Post,  The,  339 

Scale  of  Treatment,  how  determined, 
147;  use  of  outlines,  148;  use  of 
abstracts,  150 

Scott,  Sir  Walter,  155, 157. 401.  402, 
403 

Scottish  Chiefs,  373 

Scribner's  Magazine,  63,  354 

Seeger,  Alan,  19 

Self-Cultivation  in  English,  8 

Semicolon,  uses  of,  80,  448 

Sense  appeal  in  description,  159 

Sentence,  art  of  constructing,  112; 
clearness,  100-105;  compactness, 
96-100;  compound  elements,  72; 
content,  60;  economy,  264;  eu- 
phony and  rhythm,  107;  function, 
53;  life  of,  55;  modification  of,  64; 
organization  of,  57-63;  predica- 
tion, 53;  subject  of,  53;  unity,  how 
secured,  57,  58.  See  also  Balanced 
Sentence,  Complex,  Compound, 
Compound-Complex,  Elliptical,  Ex- 
clamatory, Loose,  Periodic,  Simple, 
Topic,  Well-built 

Sentence  faults,  459ff . 

Sentence  length,  60;  determined  by 


emphasis,  60f.;  by  relief,  61;  by 
rhythm,  61 

Sentences  for  correction,  475ff. 

Sentimental  Tommie,  259 

Sequence  of  facts,  assimilation  of,  27 

Series,  punctuation,  of,  72f.,  449 

Sestet,  408 

Setting,  in  fiction,  320;  rule  in  short 
story,  321 

Shadow  of  the  Glen,  The,  333 

Shakespeare,  William,  232,  245,  366. 
409.  410 

Sharp,  D.  L.,  354 

Shaw,  George  Bernard,  258,  279,  332. 
334,  369,  445 

Shelley,  P.  B.,  407 

Shall  and  will,  summary  of  rules, 
458f. 

"Ship  that  Found  Herself,  The,"  321 

Short  story,  beginning,  305;  char- 
acters, 316;  characteristics  and 
sources,  303;  development,  305; 
dialogue,  322;  materials,  303; 
point  of  view,  314;  setting,  320f.; 
sources  of  plots,  304;  titles,  325 

Short  paper,  plan  of,  335;  varieties 
of,  335,  340,  350,  351,  357-362 

Silas  Marner,  157 

"Silent  Infare,  The,"  325 

Silver  Box,  The,  332 

Simile,  263 

Simple  sentence,  56 

"Sir  Patrick  Spence,"  404ff. 

"Sire  de  Maletroit's  Door,  The," 
139,  305 

So,  471 

So-type  of  sentence,  84f. 

"  Sociology  in  Serge  and  Straw,"  326 

Soldiers  Three,  204 

Sonnet,  401,  408 

Spectator,  The,  351,  354 

Speech,  improvement  of,  14ff.,  442- 
445 

Spelling,  can  be  learned,  40;  de- 
pends on  observation,  41;  exer- 
cises, 434-438;  general  rules,  431- 
434;  methods  of  learning,  41-42 


508 


INDEX 


Spelling  out  and  abbreviation,  442 

Spenser,  Edmund,  407 

Spenserian  stanza,  401,  407,  408 

"Spires  of  Oxford,  The,"  17f. 

"Spring  Running,  The,"  188 

Stanza  forms,  407 

Statesman's  Year  Book,  232 

Steele,  Sir  Richard,  350,  388 

Stevenson,  Robert  Louis,  13,  64,  67, 
72.  74,  77,  79,  88,  89,  91.  98.  99. 
108,  110,  116,  134,  139, 141, 157, 
264,  267,  279,  305,  314.  321,  325, 
350,  351,  387f. 

Strange  Case  of  Dr.  Jekyll  and  Mr. 
Hyde,  The,  325 

Strickland,  Agnes,  146 

"Strictly  Business,"  326 

Structural  devices,  132;  purpose  of, 
132 

Structure  and  Growth  of  the  English 
Language,  265 

Stubbs,  William,  146 

Subject,  finding  and  forming,  381ff. 

Subject  of  sentence,  53 

Subject  and  predicate,  460ff. 

Subjects  for  term  papers,  384 

Subordinate  clauses,  arrangement, 
88;  functions,  86;  number,  85; 
punctuation,  71,  86 

Subordination,  methods  of,  83f. 

Substantive  clause,  in  apposition, 
punctuation  of,  86 

"Suicides  in  the  Rue  Sombre,  The," 
305 

"Suite  Homes  and  Their  Ro- 
mances," 326 

Sunday  editions,  298 

"Supers,"  326 

Suspense,  in  plot,  156;  result  of  def- 
inite devices,  155 

Swift,  Jonathan,  141,  269f. 

Swinburne,  A.  C.,  12,  399 

Syllogism,  237f.;  value  of,  240 

Synecdoche,  256f. 

Synge,  J.  M.,  324,  333,  334 

Synonyms,  as  structural  device, 
136 


Taine,  H.  A.,  30,  233 

Tale  of  Two  Cities,  A.  141,  373 

Toiler,  The,  351,  354 

"T.  B.,"  326 

"Tell-Tale  Heart,  The,"  141 

Tennyson,  Alfred  Lord,  245,   398, 

399,  400 

Tense  agreement,  460 
Tess  of  the  Z>'  Urbervilles,  157 
Thackeray,  W.  M.,  141,  155,  157 
That,  471 

That  and  which,  466 
Theme,  use  of,  3 
"Theory  and  the  Hound,  The,"  141, 

326 

"They,"  141,  305,  326 
Thomas,  Edward,  Oxford,  29 
Thompson,  A.   H.,   Cambridge  and 

Its  Colleges,  29 

Thought  relations  between  sen- 
tences, methods  of  indicating, 
132ff. 

Through  the  Looking-Glass,  269 
"Time  Machine,  The,"  305 
Time  order,  as  basis  of  narrative,  1 24 
Tolstoi,  Count  L.,  157 
Tone-color,  11 
"Toomai  of  the  Elephants,"    139, 

186ff. 

Topic  sentence,  123;  position  of,  124 
"Tragedy  of  a  Comic  Song,  The," 

326 

Tragic  plot,  156 

Traill,  H.  D.,  Social  England,  146 
Transition  methods,  152 
Transitional    words,    phrases,    and 

clauses,  punctuation  of,  68 
Treasure  Island,  141,  157 
Troilus  and  Cressida,  407 
Twelve  Pound  Look,  The,  325 
Two  sides,  in  argument,  223 
Types  of  writing,  fundamental  dis- 
tinctions, 277 

Under  the  Greenwood  Tree,  139,  157, 

169,  179,  261 
"Unfinished  Story,  An,"  305 


INDEX 


500 


UniBcation  of  plot,  306 

Unifying  principle,   in   description, 

174 
Unity,  of  sentence,  how  to  secure, 

58ff. 

Unpopular  Review,  The,  63,  339 
Usage,  books  on,  48 

Vanity  Fair,  141,  157 
"Venus  of  Hie,  The,"  141 
Verb,  nature  and  functions,  54 
Verbs,  List  of  Troublesome,  457f. 
Verbs,  series  of,  punctuation,  72ff. 
Verse,  277,  398ff.;  method  of  quot- 
ing, 415 

Verse,  Uank,  400 
Vocatives,  punctuation  of,  68,  448 
Voice,  460 
Voice  production,  15f. 

Walpole,  Horace,  388 

Walton,  Isaac,  379 

War  and  Peace,  157 

Washington,  George,  Letters  of,  233 

"Weaver  Who  Clad  the  Summer, 

The,"  326 

Well-built  sentence,  96,  107 
Wells,  H.  G.,  5,  67,  217,  367,  368 
Wells,  J.,  Oxford  and  Its  Colleges,  26 
Wharton,  Mrs.  Edith,  216, 217, 305, 

313 

Wheeler,  Fifes  and  Drums,  19 
"While  the  Auto  Waits,"  326 


Whitaker's  Almanac,  432 

Whittier,  John  Greenleaf,  402 

Who's  Who,  232 

Who's  Who  in  America,  232 

"Whose  Dog ?"  326 

Wilkins-Freeman,  Mary  E.,  319 

"Wireless,"  305 

Word  lists:  differences  in  meaning, 
487;  spelling  lists,  435-438 

Words  and  Their  Ways,  265 

Words,  birth  of,  255;  change  and 
growth  of,  256;  history  of,  258; 
importance  of,  259;  mastery  of, 
31;  processes  of  growth,  258; 
sources  for  writer,  259;  stimula- 
tive power,  260;  transitional,  68; 
values  of,  255;  variation  in  values, 
259;  vital  force  of,  30 

Wordsworth,  William,  377-379,  400 

World  Almanac,  232 

Writing,  art  of,  48;  fundamental 
purpose,  138;  good  form,  412-420; 
initial  problem,  4f.;  purpose  and 
process,  distinguished,  138;  read- 
ing and,  3 

Xingu,  305,  326 

Year  Book,  Stateman's,  232 
"Years,  The,"  305 
Yeats,  W.  B.,  19 
Youth,  305,  363 
Youth's  Encounter,  29 


IBRARY  FACIL1TJ 


A    000033788     1 


